ACIFIC COAST 





I 




■ 


Hn 


! 






HHppr 




1 


■ 








HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS OF 
THE PACIFIC COAST 

INCLUDING THE STATES OF 

WASHINGTON 

CALIFORNIA 

ARIZONA 

OREGON 

NEVADA 

IDAHO 

AND THE 

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 



'jh^yi^ 




o 



o 



HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS 

OF THE 

PACIFIC COAST 



IT 







C^-'^^X^^V^^ 




¥"'' 


i 












WRITTEN AND 
ILLUSTRATED BY 

CLIFTON JOHNSON 



/ 




Published by THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
New York Mcmviii 

LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 



Copyright, igo8 and 1^13 
by the Macmillan Company. 

New Edition Published 
September, 191 3. 






AMERICAN 
HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS 



THE PACIFIC COAST 



• Electrotyped 

and 

Printed 

by the 

F. A. Bassette Company 

Springfield, Mass. 



/ 



/^ 



©CI.A354411 
^4/ 



'•I 



f 

i 

t 
I. 
II. 
III. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XL 

XII. 

J^III. 

XIV. 
XV. 



Contents 



The Grand Canyon of Arizona 

On the Borders of Mexico 

A Rustic Village 

Spring in Southern CaHfornia 

Santa Barbara and its Historic 

A Vale of Plenty 

April in the Yosemite 

Around the Golden Gate 

A Nevada Town with a Past 

Among the Shasta Foothills 

Oregon Farm Lii'e . 

Along the Columbia 

On the Shores of Puget Sound 

At the Edge of Canada . 

The Niagara of the West 





Page 


. 


I 


. 


• 30 


. 


. 52 


. 


. 79 


Mission 


. 106 


. 


. 124 


. 


. 143 


. 


. 166 


. 


. 182 


. 


. 209 


. 


. 228 


• 


240 


• 


. 265 


. 


. 286 


p • t 


. 3^3 



Illustrations 

At the Fountain — Santa Barbara 

The Grand Canyon of Arizona 

A Guide on the Bright Angel Tiail 

Descending the Corkscrew . 

In the Depths of the Canyon 

Indian Blanket Weaving 

Early Spring 

The Launching of the Ship 

Crossing at a Ford 

A Mexican 

The Story Book 

Among the Arches of the Old /vlission 

An Indian Family .... 

On the Porch at the Village Ctore 

The Vineclad Verandah of an Old Spanish 

The Cliffs of Santa Catalina 

Comrades 

Schoolgirls 

Enroute for Death Valley . 

a. 



H 



ome 



Frontispiece 
Facing Paqb 

I 

5 
II 

14 
23 
34 
37 
41 
48 

52 
54 
67 

74 

79 

85 
86 

99 

ICX) 



Illustrations 



Garden Work 

Meditation 

The Artist 

At Work in a Home Yard 

The News 

Water for Irrigation 

At Work Along an Irrigating Ditch 

A Prospector and His Outfit 

The Road to the Mountains 

The Valley of the Yosemite 

The Yosemite Falls 

The Grizzly Giant 

Looking from the Fishermen's Wharf 
Golden Gate 

A Glimpse of the Shipping 

A Main Thorouo-hfare in Chinatown 

The View across San Francisco Bay to 

A Prospector 

The Tinker .... 

Making Firewood of the Sagebrush 

A Deserted Wigwam . 

The White Peaks of Ivlt. Shasta 

The Well at the Back Door 

Hoboes Getting Dinner 



Facing Page 
1 06 



towards the 



Mt. Tamalp 



ais 



Illustrations 



XI 









Facins Faqk 


Washing Day . . 225 


At the Gate , . . . 231 


The Milkmaids , 


. 235 


Schoolboys 


. 238 


A Hollow Among the Hills 


242 


Mending a Salmon Net 






. 244 


A Salmon Wheel 






. 251 


Woodland Blossoms 






. 254 


In a Village on the Columbia 






. 261 


Mending a Shoe 






. 266 


Starting to Fell a Giant Cedar 






. 271 


In the Garden .... 






• V7 


Burning Brush .... 






. 280 


Getting Ready to Plant Potatoes 






. .289 


Visiting at the Gate . 






. 292 


A Corduroy Bridge 






. 294 


A Log House .... 






. 298 


Planting Time .... 






. 303 


A Jack Rabbit in Sight 






. Z^7 


The Niagara of the West 






. 312 


The Ferry Above the Falls 






. 321 



This volume includes chapters on 
characteristic, picturesque, and 
historically attractive regions in the 
states of California, Oregon, Wash- 
ington, Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona, 
and a chapter on the Yosemite Na- 
tional Park. 

The notes appended to each chap- 
ter give valuable information con- 
cerning automobile routes, and many 
facts and suggestions of interest to 
tourists in general. 



Introductory Note 

The several volumes in this series have as a rule very 
little to say of the large towns. Country life is their 
chief topic, especially the typical and the picturesque. 
To the traveller, no life is more interesting, and yet 
there is none with which it is so difficult to get into close 
and unconventional contact. Ordinarily, we catch 
only casual glimpses. For this reason I have wandered 
much on rural byways and lodged most of the time at 
village hotels or in rustic homes. My trips have taken 
me to many characteristic and famous regions; but 
always in both text and pictures I have tried to show 
actual life and nature and to convey some of the 
pleasure I experienced in my intimate acquaintance 
with the people. 

These "Highways and Byways" volumes are often 
consulted by persons who are planning pleasure tours. 
To make the books more helpful for this purpose each 
chapter has a note appended containing suggestions 
for intending travellers. With the aid of these notes, 
I think the reader can readily decide what regions are 
likely to prove particularly worth visiting, and will 
know how to see such regions with the most comfort 
and facility. 

Clifton Johnson 

Hadley, Mass. 




At the fountain — Santa Barbara 



Highways and Byways of the 
Pacific Coast 



THE GRAND CANYON OF ARIZONA 

THE only point where the Grand Canyon is 
easily accessible to travellers is at the Bright 
Angel Trail, sixty-five miles north of the main 
line of the Santa Fe. You take a branch road that 
strikes off from Williams across the desert — a desert of 
red earth stained v^ith alkali and supporting a scanty 
growth of sagebrush and moss, stray bits of grass and 
sometimes a straggling patch of scrub cedar. As you go 
on, the cedars become more numerous and larger, and 
there are also pines which gradually multiply until the 
country is pretty uniformly wooded, though the forest 
is never dense nor the trees of imposing size. 

In this sober evergreen woods, at the end of the 
journey, is a settlement, which, with its tents and other 
rough structures clustering among the trees, is sugges- 
tive of a campmeeting village. The only building that 
does not accord with this idea is a great hotel, supposed 



2 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

to be palatial, but outwardly somewhat suggestive of a 
factory. The land slopes away from the chasm, and 
you climb a little hill from the railway station till you 
suddenly leave the commonplace forest and have before 
you the world-famous canyon, thirteen miles here from 
rim to rim as the birds fly, and six thousand feet deep. 

The scene is strange and impressive. Everywhere 
the vast gorge is a mighty tangle of ravines and chasms 
and sculptured bluffs. Then, too, there is color; but 
that is secondary to the vastness, for the tints are not 
gaudy or startling as so often depicted. There is no 
suggestion of a gay sunset. The strata of colors, as one 
kind of rock succeeds another, is in soft tones of reddish 
brow^n, ochre yellows and light or dull grays that become 
delicate purples and blues in the shadowed portions. 

The day I arrived was perfectly clear, and I could see 
to the farthest recesses of the intricate furrowings of 
the chasm; and in the evening the full moon shone 
down on the tremendous soundless mystery of the 
canyon, here dimly lighting the grim cliffs, there casting 
a broad gloom of shadow, while the distance was gray 
and formless, apparently descending to depths immeas- 
urable. It was a wonderful sight, yet not at the time 
wholly a pleasure; for the wind was whistling about in 
fierce gusts that soon chilled and drove me indoors. 

I was stopping at one of the older and more rustic 
hotels which was scarcely ten feet from the verge of the 



The Grand Canyon of Arizona 3 

gorge. The office had log walls, and a hot fire burned 
in the big stove in the center. The room was a gather- 
ing-place for the guides. They liked to occupy a row 
of chairs along the borders of the room and tilt back to 
smoke and talk. Four Navajo Indians wandered in 
during the evening. They were genuine children of the 
desert, stolid and serious, and clad in many-hued 
blankets and other wild trappings. For an hour they 
stood about the office counter while the hotel clerks 
examined and dickered over the price of the rings and 
bracelets with which the persons of the visitors were 
adorned. 

Another desert dweller who warmed himself at our 
fire that evening was John Hanse, a gray, vigorous man 
who long years ago became so ardent a lover of the 
canyon that he planted his home on its borders and has 
made the gorge his life companion. He said he was 
ninety-two his last birthday, but you could always 
discount his statements. He was a veritable Mun- 
chausen for stories, one of which is as follows: 

"I had a horse," said he, "that was a great jumper. 
Why, he could jump a mile without half tryin'. By and 
by the thought came to me that my horse could jump 
across the canyon, and I decided that was something 
worth doing. So I mounted him and we got a good 
start, and he sailed up into the air with the most tre- 
mendous leap that ever was made. But when we were 



4 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

most half way across, I see we wouldn't quite make 
the other crest and I turned the horse around and came 
back. We'd pretty near reached the ground — in fact, 
we was within about six foot of it — and I thought we 
was goin' to land with such a thump that I jumped off 
and let the horse go the rest of the way alone." 

The wind thrashed around all night, but quieted 
somewhat in the morning, though still far from gentle. 
The sky looked threatening, and we had a squall of 
sleet. Then the sun glimmered out doubtfully, and I 
engaged a guide to pilot me down the seven mile trail. 
I chose to walk, and he followed close behind leading a 
saddled mule. Our goal was the Colorado River, deep in 
the chaos of adamantine channels and vast crags on which 
I had looked from the rim. You would hardly suspicion 
there was a chance for any trail, the bordering bluffs 
are so immense and so perpendicular. But at one place 
is a crevice choked with fragments from the cliffs and 
a little earth that has washed in. Here has been made 
a slender zigzag path that crawls gingerly down the 
incline, always turning and twisting and taking advan- 
tage of every chance to make the descent safe and easy. 
Nevertheless, it is the rudest kind of a highway, and 
there was too much mud and too many loose stones in 
<-he path for comfortable walking. In places a passage 
had been blasted along the face of a cliff, and the 
unprotected outer edge dropped away vertically to 
dizzy depths not at all agreeable to contemplate. 



r^f *■ vs 




A guide on the Bright Angel Trail 



The Grand Canyon of Arizona 5 

My guide's name was Tom, and I was told that his 
last name had originally been Catt, but that this sur- 
name had been changed by an act of the legislature, 
as it was not to his liking to pass through life known 
always as Thomas Catt. He was a jolly fellow, voluble 
and humorous. His language was, however, incHned to 
the sulphurous and we were constantly encountering 
places or objects along the trail that, according to his 
tell, the Almighty had had something to do with, and 
hadn't blessed, either. He had served on the Bright 
Angel Trail for years, but he said this was his last 
season there. "I've looked at the Grand Canyon until 
I'm gettin' cross-eyed," he declared. 

The views as we went on were no longer confined to 
the downlook, but the gigantic, many-tinted bluffs and 
pyramided masses loomed far above and made a ragged 
and ever-changing sky-line. The rocks were often 
quite architectural in appearance and suggested vast 
and solemn cathedrals, or church organs that would 
perhaps break forth into the mightiest music the world 
had ever heard. 

Tom presently stopped to light his pipe. "You'll be 
tired by night," said he, "if you walk the whole distance 
down and back. Still, a good many do it. They're 
apt to get pretty well tuckered though, especially in 
hot weather. Once I was coming out of the canyon 
with a party, and down below, where the path is very 



6 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

twisted, at what we call Jacob's Ladder, a woman was 
settin'. She'd walked to the river and was on her way 
back; but she said she couldn't go no farther nohow, and 
unless she could get a ride she was goin' to die right 
thar. So I let her get on my horse and I followed on foot. 
Well, sir, when we got to the top and she was off the 
horse she turned to me and said, *If I had any way of 
reporting you and the whole outfit that manage this 
trail I would sure do it.' 

" *What for.?' I asked. 

" * Because,' says she, 'you are the most ignorant 
and inconsiderate lot of people I ever see. You got no 
business to have any such rough trail, and you got no 
business to allow a person to walk down it. You 
ought to be prosecuted!' and she walked off, and never 
even said, * Thank you,' for the use of my horse." 

A little farther on, the guide pointed to a slide of 
loose rock at the foot of the cliff we were edging along, 
and said, " Do you see that dead burro down thar .? 
It tumbled off here the other day. It was in a pack 
train, and the kid who had charge rushed the burros 
up in a bunch, and while he was trying to straighten 
'em out this one was crowded off. We lose an animal 
about every year that way. But thar never has been a 
human life lost, though eight or ten thousand people 
go over the trail now each year. It's a wonder to me that 
some of the women haven't come to grief before this. 



The Grand Canyon of Arizona 7 

You never know what a woman will do. They*re 
always screechin' at you, *Oh, guide, my saddle is 
loose!' and, *0h, guide, I can't stay on any longer!' 

"We have to keep jollyin' 'em to make 'em forget 
what sort of a road they're travellin'. You can manage 
'em that way very well, but if a man gets nervous thar 
ain't no use. You can't work on his mind in any such 
fashion, and he gives you no end of trouble. Thar was 
one fellow recently that another guide and I got to 
joshing as we went down the trail about its dangers, 
and how if a man started to fall he'd go quarter of a 
mile without stoppin'. We didn't think but that he 
was takin' it all right when suddenly he slid off his 
horse and said he wa'n't goin' no farther. We tried to 
reason with him, but he was plumb scared out of his 
senses, and he struck the back trail. He wouldn't even 
mount his horse, and he crawled all the way on his 
hands and knees, clinging to the inner wall. I reckon 
he was on the verge of snakes. , 

"Everybody takes pride in the trip after it's over, 
especially the women, no matter how much discomfort 
they've suffered. 'Why, I went way down thar and 
back, the whole distance, fourteen miles,' a woman 
will say afterward to her friends, 'and I rode a mule — 
think of it!' 

"Yes, the women consider they've done a big thing; 
but they're like an Irishman I know of who had charge 



8 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

of a squad workin' on the railroad. One morning he 
hustled his men around and scolded 'em so, they begun 
to conclude something was the matter. At last one of 
'em said, *Mike, what the divil makes you so peppery 
today r 

" Tm not,' says he. 
*Yes ye are!' says the other. *Ye been swearin' 
at us the whole mornin'.' 

" *Well, Jimmy,' says Mike, 'ye know I've a wife 
and children to support, and only these two hands of 
mine to earn a living. It's been none too aisy in the 
past; and last night the ould woman brought me twins. 
Haven't I good raison for bein' out of timper.?' 

" *Ah, Mike,' says Jimmy, 'ye may talk; but I'll 
guarantee ye wouldn't take tin thousand dollars for 
thim twins.' 

" * Perhaps not,' said Mike slowly, thinkin' it over; 
* perhaps not, but I wouldn't give tin cints for another 
pair.' 

"That's the way with a woman who goes over this 
trail. One trip does for a lifetime. She wouldn't take 
ten thousand dollars for the experience after it is over; 
but she wouldn't give ten cents to repeat it." 

Among the upper cliffs the snow streaks lingered. 
However, we had soon descended to where the fresh 
leafage of spring was bursting the buds, and the flowers 
were in bloom, and later got down to where the sturdy 



The Grand Canyon of Arizona 9 

century plants flourished. Our surroundings were in 
the main a rocky wilderness, yet wherever there was a 
slope of broken fragments, or a niche or hollow to 
retain a little sod, some form of plant life was sure to 
get a foothold. Along the higher portion of the trail 
grew occasional tall, handsome firs; but most of the 
canyon trees were dwarfed and twisted cedars and 
pines. Rabbit brush, greasewood. Mormon tea and 
squaw-bush were the common shrubs, and there were 
thickets of oak bushes, and numerous clusters of soap- 
weed. "You dry the roots of that soap-weed," 
said Tom, "and then put them in water and they make 
a foam right off." 

He informed me that later in the season, "flowers of 
all kinds known" bloomed in the canyon, and that then 
there would be an "awful lot of birds." At present, 
though we sometimes heard the cry of a blue jay, or 
the cheerful twitter of wrens, the valley was rather 
silent. We were still on the upper portion of the trail 
when we heard a pack train approaching on the zigzag 
path from far below. Tom gave a halloo that roused the 
echoes and brought a response from the driver of the 
pack train. We met him at length. He had four 
burros in his charge moving in single file ahead of him, 
each loaded with a pair of five gallon cans filled with 
water from a spring half-way down to the river. The 
water was for the use of one of the hotels at the summit. 



10 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

The fellow urged the beasts on by a shrill whistling 
and by calHng out, "Bobby!" "Sandy!" etc., according 
as this one Or that one lagged. 

"Those burros are foxy creatures," remarked my 
guide as they went on up the trail. "See *em stop and 
look. They'll go anywhere a goat will. Now Fll 
mount my mule. I would have rode before, but yester- 
day it carried a fat Dutchman who made its back sore. 
He was so fat and round that when you got him on 
mule-back he looked just like a punkin. Do you see 
this side trail that branches off here .? That goes around 
the bluff a mile and a half to the Hogan mine. The 
mine ain't worked now, and I don't think it ever paid. 
I've never been thar, and if I could have a deed of it 
just for goin' to see it I wouldn't take the trouble." 

Half-way down we came to a comparative level where 
a little stream wandered among some green willows, 
and where a cluster of tents had been erected for the 
sojourning of persons who wished to stay in the valley 
over night. Here by the stream there was, until the 
middle of the last century, a colony of Indians. They 
irrigated some of the surrounding land and raised 
patches of corn, watermelons and wheat. No doubt 
they could supply practically all their wants right in 
the canyon and only climbed out at long intervals. 
The fact that they lived there did not help to make the 
place more accessible. Indians never improve a trail 




Descending the Corkscrew 



The Grand Canyon of Arizona II 

of their own volition, and the ravines and slopes up 
which they cHmbed continued to be as formed by nature. 
Far back in prehistoric times the cHfF-dwellers knew 
this same trail, and they had homes under the shelving 
overlap of the cliffs. Ruins of their strange habitations 
are still to be seen only a little aside from the route to 
the river. 

A mile or two beyond the half-way camp we descended 
a cliff by the "corkscrew," where the path doubles on 
itself in short turns for a long distance and is alarm- 
ingly steep and fraught with direful possibilities. Then 
we entered a narrow gorge bounded by wild crags of 
barren red granite that looked as if they had been burned 
to an unyielding hardness by subterranean fires. We 
followed a small stream that coursed down the hollow, 
often crossing it, and sometimes passing through a 
thicket of willows. 

At last the crags suddenly ended and we came out 
on a beach of clean yellow sand, that bordered the 
river. All around towered the cliffs, and the swift 
muddy stream was dwarfed by its tremendous surround- 
ings to insignificance. It had no charm of size or color. 
Was it this dirty creek I had come down that seven 
miles of rough, tortuous path to see ^ But one could 
not gainsay the impressiveness of the environment, and 
it was a satisfaction to behold the power that had done 
the mighty carving. 



12 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

Though the river is narrow it is very deep, and is in 
reality one of the great rivers of North America. Traced 
back to the source of its principal tributary it is two 
thousand miles long, and it drains an enormous amount 
of territory. Yet for the most part its course is in the 
heart of a region of arid plains, wild forests and rugged 
mountains, far from settlements or the common routes 
of travel, and until recent years it has remained practi- 
cally unknown. 

The first whites to obtain a view of the big canyon 
vv-ere the members of a Spanish expedition in 1540, 
but they failed in all efforts to descend into the chasm. 
For three centuries afterward it was only seen at 
long intervals by occasional travellers, herdsmen or 
trappers who happened to wander into the region. Even 
after 1850 when surveying parties began to investigate 
portions of the river, its course for the hundreds of miles 
that it flows in the depths of the monstrous chasm 
continued to be a matter of conjecture. It was believed 
that not only were there impassable rapids and falls, 
but that in places the stream flowed along under ground. 
Thus, to attempt its navigation was to court death. 

Yet in spite of all this. Major J. W. Powell in 1869 
undertook its exploration by going down it with nine 
men and four boats. He started on the Green River in 
Utah. One of the men presently left and returned to 
civilization, and three others, after holding out against 



The Grand Canyon of Arizona 13 

the terrors of the trip for many weeks, decided they 
would prefer to encounter the perils of the unknown 
desert. Unfortunately, they fell in with hostile savages 
when they climbed out on the plateau, and they were 
ambushed and killed. Their comrades completed the 
trip with safety, though after many capsizings in the 
rapids, and narrow escapes from drowning, and the 
loss of two boats. 

Nearly opposite where I then was. Major Powell 
discovered a little stream of clear water joining the 
muddy current of the river. Because of the purity of 
the water he called the stream Bright Angel Creek, and 
this name has been appropriated for the trail on the 
other side of the Colorado. 

The canyon began to be known to tourists soon after 
the Santa Fe railroad was completed in 1882, but the 
long rough ride to get to the rim, and the expense made 
the visitors few. Facilities gradually improved, yet 
nothing like crowds came till 190 1 when the branch 
railroad to the Bright Angel Trail superseded the old 
stages. 

Trails which offer a descent to the river are very few. 
This particular one was discovered by the two Cameron 
brothers in 1889. They were prospecting for minerals 
and had a boat by means of which they explored the 
river for a hundred miles in this vicinity. One day they 
chanced to observe the crevice where the trail now is 



14 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

and followed it to the upland. They found some veins 
of copper near by that they hoped might prove profit- 
able; but they also, as my guide said, "were a-figuring 
on this as a sight-seeing place." Two years later they 
dug and blasted a rude path up the ravine, and by 
right of discovery and the work they did, they became 
owners of the property, though at the time, to quote my 
guide again, "They were poor men and had come here 
with almost nothin'. They had no more than the butt 
end of a shoestring, you might say." 

Tom and I presently turned back. When we reached 
the half-way camp the western walls of the canyon 
were obscured by shreds of showers, and the sun had 
disappeared in dark and threatening clouds. I secured 
a horse and rode the rest of the journey. A drenching 
rain soon began to fall, and the water poured off my 
hat brim, and the trail got muddy and slippery. It was 
hard work for the creatures. We let them have free 
rein and they climbed with their noses lowered almost 
to the ground. The landscape in the mists was more 
imposing than ever. All the wild medley of buttressed 
cliffs and lonely pinnacles became vague and evanes- 
cent. Much of what would usually have been in view 
was hidden altogether or came and went with the 
shifting of the storm. There was no beginning or end 
to the world roundabout. The only solid portion 
was that under our feet. The rest was a mystery of 




In the depths of the ca?iyo?i 



The Grand Canyon of Arizona 15 

cloud and fog and a dreamland of half-discerned 
titanic crags. Even the near trees were softened into 
an aspect unknown before, and the shrubbery twinkled 
with water drops. 

As we neared the top we could hear a roaring sound 
as of surf along the seashore. It was the w^ind in the 
trees at the crest. Now the rain turned to snow, and 
when we climbed out of the canyon we came into a 
world of white with a wild wind whirling the flakes and 
buffeting the fog that rose in weird, baffled masses from 
the yawning valley depths. Our beasts huddled in the 
shelter of a shed, and I stiffly dismounted and ran off 
to warm myself and dry my wet clothing before the 
hotel fire. 

The wind howled and banged about without ceasing 
through the night. "Jingoes!" commented one of the 
guides in the morning, "it tore around so I couldn't 
help a-thinking it might lift the old hotel off its base 
and send it down into the canyon.'* 

The air outside was full of flying flakes and the rocks 
and trees on the windward side were coated with clinging 
snow. The great gorge was a vacancy of gray mist, 
and some new arrivals inquired where the canyon was, 
anyway. One man after looking down into the void 
and trying vainly to penetrate its vapors said, "I and 
my two daughters come here yesterday to see the 
canyon, and the trip has cost me a lot of money. I must 



i6 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

go away by the next train and I hain't seen a durn thing 
but snow and fog. I no business to have come at this 
time of year. March is a mean month. It ought not 
to be allowed." 

The weather did not encourage wandering, and I 
went to visit a Hopi Indian house erected not far from 
the hotel for the benefit of tourists. It was a flat-roofed, 
terraced building of stone, with rough ladders set up 
against it to give access to the upper stories. Most of 
the interior was devoted to the display and sale of 
curios; but in one room were a number of Indian 
women squatted on the floor shaping pottery, and in a 
second apartment were both men and women carding 
wool, spinning thread and weaving blankets. 

Back of the Hopi house were two Navajo wigwams — 
dome-shaped, with a stout framework of heavy sticks 
daubed over with mud. The huts looked as if they 
attained the acme of crowded discomfort, but I was told 
that their occupants were suited. "There was a time," 
said my informant, "when the government built some 
good frame houses for the Navajoes, and they were 
much pleased, but they put their stock into the new 
dwellings and continued to live themselves as before." 

I spent most of the day at a small two-story hotel 
owned by the Cameron brothers, the discoverers and 
owners of the Bright Angel Trail. We had an open fire 
of pitch pine, and it flamed up vigorously and threw 



The Grand Canyon of Arizona 17 

out a fine volume of heat. The company included 
Ralph Cameron, Tom Catt and two or three other 
guides, and a German artist named Wix. 

"You've got to v^ork on the trail all the time in order 
to keep it in good shape," remarked Ralph between 
pufFs at his pipe. " It'll have to be gone over after this 
storm. The stones slide in and the earth washes away. 
If the trail was neglected for a year it would be impas- 
sable to horses. We have our worst rains in July — regular 
cloudbursts with terrific thunder and lightning. In an 
hour, or perhaps a quarter of an hour, the trail will be so 
gutted that the expense of repairing it is three or four 
hundred dollars. You never can tell when the storms 
are coming. I've seen the weather clear as a bell, and 
in five minutes it would be raining pitchforks. 

"My cook has just told me he was going to quit 
tomorrow. I don't know but I shall have to find a 
Chinaman. The Chinese make the best help in the 
world. They never try to be fresh with you, they're 
clean, and they won't go ofi^ and leave you in the lurch. 
They always give fair warning. There was a time when 
I was living at Flagstaff that we ran 'em out of there — 
made 'em git. But we were sorry for it afterward. 
They'd owned most of the restaurants, and you could 
get a good meal for two bits (twenty-five cents), while 
after they left prices jumped up and you had to pay six 
bits for the same food. In fact, the eating-house people 



1 8 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

got so independent a really good meal wasn't to be had 
at any price. There was such a lot of trouble that 
finally we let the Chinese back. They're the most indus- 
trious class IVe ever seen. You never come across a 
broke Chinaman around begging, and it's very seldom 
they need any attention from the police, because if 
they have any rows it's among themselves. 

" Did you hear the coyotes last night .? They were 
howling when I went to bed at ten o'clock." 

"The wind made such a racket," said I, "that I 
couldn't hear anything else." 

"Oh, yes, you could," declared Tom, the guide. 
"The coyotes got more wind than the elements. You 
could have heard them above the gale well enough, 
and you can hear 'em at some time every night. It's 
like a lot of kids hollerin', and one coyote will make as 
much noise as twenty dogs. They come to eat the refuse 
the hotels dump out in the woods, and they clean it 
all up, too." 

"They're a cowardly animal," remarked Ralph, 
"and they won't attack anything bigger than a lamb 
unless they get very hungry. Then they may kill a 
full-grown sheep if they get it separate from the flock. 
They're nothing like as bad as the lobo wolves. There's 
a bounty of a dollar on coyotes, while on wolves It's 
twenty dollars. If a wolf gets in among the sheep it 
won't stop short of killing a dozen or two. Then it 



The Grand Canyon of Arizona 19 

stays around there to eat *em till the bodies are all gone. 
It don't mind the flesh getting putrid. Its appetite 
ain't in the least delicate and it cleans up practically 
everything. It even crunches and makes way w^ith 
nearly all the bones. So there's little left but the wool. 
They ain't numerous. I s'pose, if they were, President 
Roosevelt would come here and chase 'em out or kill 
'em off." 

"Well," said another of the party, " I hope his hunting 
would have a little less of the show-ofF in it than the 
ride he took from here to Grand View. It's sixteen 
miles, and he galloped there in an hour and twelve 
minutes. A man ought not to attempt it over our roads 
in much less than twice that time. He rode away from 
all his attendants, and it was only luck that he didn't 
ruin his horse." 

"I made better time than he did once," observed 
Tom, "and over a longer distance. I rode twenty-two 
miles in an hour and a half. But I was runnin' away 
from the sheriff, and was obliged to git over the line." 

"The speech the president made here has always 
struck me as funny," said Ralph. "He told us to save 
the canyon for our children and our children's children. 
It'll be here. What under heaven does he think we 
were going to do with a gorge thirteen miles across and 
a mile deep — fill it up .?" 



20 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

"The things you have speak of wild animals," said 
the artist, "remind me of an experience in Canada. 
I was tell there about hunting bears, and how many 
there be, and how savage. When I was out in the forest 
sketching I was very much scare and think what I 
might do. If I do as I feel, no tree too high for me to 
climb up, and when I get to the top I would make 
some yells for papa and mama. But it seem to me that 
the best would be to point my umbrella at the bear 
and open and shut it in his face. He not know the 
meaning of that and go away. 

"Nothing happen till one day just as I was finish 
sketching and am packing up I see a bear sure enough. 
He was a little fellow, and he was snufifle around to get 
something. He did not see me yet, and I says to myself, 
*Dis is a cub, and I need not be frighten of him, but I 
shall have soon to hurry, or the whole family will be 
here, and then they will make me all kind of trouble.' 

"So I grab my things and was starting to run when 
I met a man. *Get away from here!' I say. *Dere's 
a bear back behind me!' 

" ^ Where?' he ask. 

"I point at it. 

"*Ho!' he say, Mat is a porcupine;' and it was, and 
I have all my scare for nothing." 

"About the funniest creature we've got in this coun- 
try," said Ralph, " is the trade rat. It lives in the canyon 



The Grand Canyon of Arizona 21 

and builds its nest in cracks of the cHfFs out of sticks 
and rubbish; and it puts cactus thorns and all sorts of 
sharp instruments on the outside for a defence. The 
way the rats get their name is that when they take 
anything of yours they always put something in its 
place — a stick or burr or whatever comes handy. They 
will take anything they can carry whether the thing is 
of any use to them or not. IVe known 'em to steal 
knives and forks." 

"Yes/' said one of the guides whom the others called 
" Bill," "I lost a spoon over a foot long, one night; and 
after hunting all around I found it where a trade rat 
had drug it, two hundred yards away. Another time 
there was a feller in camp with me who put down his 
hat when he got ready to go to sleep and laid his pipe 
and tobacco pouch in it. Next morning the pipe and 
tobacco were gone, and in their place were two lumps 
of dirt." 

"The most remarkable thing I know of," said Tom, 
"is the different color of rattlesnakes here in Arizona. 
Over in the Graham Mountains Fve seen 'em as black 
as soot, and that's the only place I ever did see them 
right black. Down in the canyon they're grayish, and 
there's some places in the desert where they're bright 
yellow. They take their color pretty much from the 
earth they're in." 



22 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

"There's just one thing I like about rattlesnakes/* 
said Ralph. "They give you warnin' before they 
attempt to bite." 

"Unless you step on 'em," said Tom. "Then they 
don't waste any time; but none of our snakes will go 
out of their way to attack a man." 

"There's seldom anyone dies from a snake bite," 
remarked Bill. "Whiskey is the best remedy, and am- 
monia is good, rubbed on and taken internally. I tell 
you the most infamous little snake is the side-winder." 

"He is a vicious beggar," said Cameron, "and it's 
lucky he is a desert snake and small. I've, never seen 
one over eighteen inches long. There's millions of 'em 
down below Yuma. Their tracks are as thick in the 
sand there as if the ground had been gone over with a 
rake. When you get near one it moves off sideways 
a-watchin' you all the time." 

"Rattlesnakes are great hands to live in prairie-dog 
holes," said Bill, "and there's often owls in the same 
holes, too. Them prairie dogs are a curse to lots of 
country. Their mounds and holes are a nuisance in 
the first place, and the dogs eat every green thing 
around. Where there's a whole town of them they 
make a regular waste." 

"Still storming," said Tom, looking out of the window 
"I suppose the water train won't be comin' up today." 



The Grand Canyon of Arizona 23 

"No," responded Ralph, "and I wish we had that 
spring up here at the top." 

The thin surface soil and underlying porous lime- 
stone do not hold water any more than would a sieve, 
and the nearest spring on the upland is forty-five miles 
distant. Even when found, the desert water is often of 
doubtful character. It may be tainted with alkali or 
other substances. As a result it is perhaps poisonous, 
or possibly it is simply bitter, or puckers the mouth. 

"Poison waters are usually as clear and nice to look 
at as any you ever see," explained Bill. "One time 
me 'n' another feller was goin' 'cross country, and we 
got awful thirsty. So when we come to a sparklin* 
pretty stream — say, we just lit into it; but the water 
made us dreadful sick; and I been willin' to leave 
alkali waters and such on as that alone since then." 

"Have you seen that new girl who's workin' in the 
sales department at the Hopi house r* asked Tom. 
"Her name is Mrs. Wells, and she's about as bright as 
they make 'em. Last week I thought I'd play a joke 
on her. I was takin' a party there to show 'em the 
Indians and things, and I said to 'em, *Now I wish 
you'd be very particular how you speak before these 
Indians and not say anything to hurt their feelin's. 
Some of 'em understand English. Then, too, there's 
some who are very light complected so't you might not 
know they was Indians. One girl in particular I want 



24 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

you to notice. She waits on customers, and she's lighter 
complected than most white folks, but she's a full- 
blooded Hopi squaw.' 

" *Ah!' they said, Ss that so .^ How remarkable!' 

"We went in and Mrs. Wells came forward with her 
head cocked up and all smiles and says, *How do you 
do,' to my party in her finest manner; and one whis- 
pered to another, 'Ain't it strange ^ I would never have 
believed that she was a squaw.' 

" But she overheard, and she knew I'd been playin' 
a trick, and she looked fierce at me. However, she 
never let on to the visitors, and pretty soon one of them 
said to her, *Is it really true that you are a squaw .?' 

"* Certainly I am,' she replied. *I don't deny my 
nationality.' 

" * And can you talk the language V the other asked. 

" *Skee-dee, skee-dee!' she says, and they kept 
watchin' her the whole time and come away believin' 
that she was a white squaw." 

I saw this lady myself, later in the day. She was 
mentioning to some crony that her " father's father was 
the darndest old toper that ever was. He was a South- 
ern man," she added, "and it was the fashion to drink 
then. Besides, his home was in a region near the 
Tennessee Mountains that was full of blind pigs — illicit 
distilleries, you know. Say, you ought to travel in those 
mountains. It beats all, the way they live there. Mr. 




Indian blanket zveaving 



The Grand Canyon of Arizona 25 

Wells and I took a trip into them soon after we was 
married, and toward dark one day we come to the only 
house weM seen for a long distance. It didn't look 
very inviting, but it seemed Hke our last chance and we 
asked if we could get lodging. The mountain people 
are very hospitable, and they made us welcome, though 
the house was a one-room log cabin, and the man had 
ten children. There was only a single bed, and we 
wondered how they'd manage. After supper they put 
the youngest children into the bed, and when they were 
sound asleep they lifted them out and laid them down 
in a corner. Then the next older children got into bed 
and were disposed of in the same manner. Finally 
the last of the ten had been transferred to the floor, 
and we were told we might have the bed. Pretty soon 
we were asleep, and we never woke up till the next 
morning. Then to our surprise, we found ourselves 
on the floor with the kids, and the man and his wife 
were in the bed." 

When I left the Hopi house I found that the storm 
showed signs of breaking, and gleams of sunshine and 
scuds of sleet and rain alternated. These changes 
were not such as to stir one especially, when viewed in 
the sober woodland at the crest of the canyon; but 
looking into the gorge with its valleys within valleys 
and its heights piled on heights they worked miracles. 
I doubt if anywhere else on the globe could be witnessed 



20 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

so astonishing a play of hght and shade. The moun- 
tains of the chasm seemed to be engaged in a game of 
hide and seek in the mists, now peering forth, now 
disappearing in the darkhng shadows. The Hght con- 
stantly varied; sometimes dim and tender; sometimes 
clear, gleaming on the many-tinted crags with marvelous 
purity, and glancing along from buttress to buttress, 
yet always drifting on and shifting to new shapes and 
making fresh combinations. Presently there appeared 
a rainbow glorifying one of the retreating showers, and 
it was so vivid it glowed as if it were of fire and not a 
mere reflection. The shower moved off, the rainbow 
faded, the sunlight shimmered over the nearer portion 
of the valley while the farther recesses of the great 
chasm reposed in a blue gloom under the cloud shadows. 
It was a wondrous vision. 

On my last evening at the Grand Canyon there was 
a raffle. A young half-breed guide, whom the others 
knew as "Jess Bearclaws" was going away, and he 
wanted to turn his silver-mounted saddle into money. 
It had cost him forty-five dollars, but he was willing 
to dispose of it for thirty, and for a day or two had been 
wandering around with a paper getting signers for 
fifteen chances at two dollars a chance. The guides, 
drivers and clerks were mostly quite ready to help him 
out, though one clerk refused on the ground that he 
had no more use for a saddle than for a balloon. Now 



The Grand Canyon of Arizona 27 

the chances were all sold and the time had come to 
determine who was to win the prize. The investors 
with a few exceptions were on hand early and paid 
their dues and chaffed and chewed and smoked and 
discussed the raffle with great seriousness. Meanwhile 
the absentees were sent for and someone went to hunt 
up three dice. 

"I take a chance on everything that comes along," 
said a bleary-looking fellow known as "Yellowstone 
Jack." "It's only a dollar or two, and what does that 
matter .?" 

Presently Jess Bearclaws accosted a tall chap named 
Buckland and said, "I bet you five dollars Tve got more 
money in my pocket than you have." 

Everyone was aghast, for Buckland was a nabob 
among his fellows and reputed to be worth one hundred 
thousand dollars. 

"I take that bet," said he. 

"Well," said Jess, "you ain't got any money in my 
pocket, have you .?" 

"I didn't say I had," retorted Buckland, and then 
followed a long discussion as to what that ambiguous 
bet of the half-breed amounted to. 

My guide Tom came in late, paid his two dollars, 
and remarked, "Now I'm happy — for I'm just as free 
of money as a fish is of feathers." 



28 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

Presently the gang adjourned to an inner room, and 
when they reappeared Buckland had won the saddle. 
"I knew he would!" exclaimed Tom. "There never 
was such a fellow for luck. He could go down and fall 
in the Colorado River and come out with his pockets 
full of trout." 

Everybody laughed, and the joke was appreciated 
the more because there are no trout in the river. 

Arizona Notes. — On my way across " Sunset Land," as Arizona 
would be called if we used the English equivalent for its name, an 
old lady who sat in the next seat ahead remarked to her companion, 
"I think we must be somewhere near that putrified forest I've 
heard tell about." 

She looked out of the window, and pointed at some bare, ragged- 
sloped mesas we were passing. " Seems to me," she said, " these hills 
look kind o' putrified — yes, the rocks certainly do look just like putri- 
fied mud." 

She had not hit quite the word she wanted, but a petrified forest 
covering thousands of acres is one of the wonderful features of Ari- 
zona. This is most readily reached from Adamana, whence one 
portion of the forest is only 6 miles distant. The ground is carpeted 
with agate chips, and strewn with agate trunks from two to four feet 
in diameter. One of the stone trees is no feet long and forms a 
natural bridge over a ravine. 

From Holbrook, about 20 miles west of Adamana, 7 Hopi villages 
can be visited. If possible, visit them in the latter part of August 
when the famous "Snake Dances" occur. 

Near Flagstaff is the Lowell Observatory, to which visitors are wel- 
comed. A little to the north of Flagstafi^ rise the San Francisco Moun- 
tains — extinct volcanoes surrounded by a district of cinder cones 
and lava beds. A road has been constructed up Humphrey's Peak. 
At the summit you are nearly 13^000 feet above the sea, and get an 



The Grand Canyon of Arizona 29 

extensive view of the Painted Desert and other features of the 
region. 

Long before it was discovered by white men, Arizona was in- 
habited by a superior race, whose ruined cities, aqueducts, and 
fortifications are numerous in the valleys and canyons, and show 
that the population must have been large. Eight miles south of 
Flagstaff are scores of cliff dwellings in Walnut Canyon, and nine 
miles to the north sonie of the ruins of cave dwellings can be seen 
on Coconino Butte. 

The Grand Canyon can be reached from Flagstaff by automobile. 
The road is for the most part in the forest. It is a dirt road that is 
rough and rutted in places, and that sometimes has to cross steep- 
sided gullies and wide stretches of lava beds. The distance is 87 miles. 

Usually, travellers prefer to go by railroad. They leave the 
main line at Williams, a town named after " Bill " Williams, a famous 
scout who was killed by the Indians. April and May, and October 
and November are the best months for cultivating an acquaintance 
with the Canyon. In summer, although the heat at the rim of the 
chasm is not often oppressive, the depths get very hot. The winter 
weather is bleak and disagreeable, but the effects given by clouds 
and snow under the brilliant skies are enchanting. It is especially 
desirable to see the Canyon when there is a full moon. 

One can get fairly varied and satisfactory impressions of the 
Canyon in a two days' interruption of the main line journey, but a 
week is better. If you plan to do much tramping, your shoes should 
be stout and thick-soled. Ladies will find short walking-skirts a 
convenience, and a broad-brimmed straw hat, which can be rented 
at the hotels, is a comfort in summer. A vigorous person, accus- 
tomed to rough walking, can descend to the river and return on foot, 
but most people will find a horse a necessity, particularly for the 
upward climb. 

There are several outjutting points within easy riding or walking 
distance of the Bright Angel Trail that are well worth visiting. 

Of the other trails that descend into the Canyon, the most notable 
is the Grand View Trail, 13 miles to the east. 



II 

ON THE BORDERS OF MEXICO 

WHAT I saw of Arizona and Eastern California 
as I sped across them on the journey to the 
coast was for the most part barren, parched 
and forlorn to the last degree. As one of my fellow 
tourists remarked, ''I don't see what all this land is 
good for except to hold the world together." 

But suddenly the desert was left behind and we were 
amid blossoming gardens and green, luscious fields, 
and orange orchards with their dark, vigorous foliage 
all a-twinkle with golden globes. What a land of 
enchantment it did seem after those long days on the 
train hastening over the frosty and arid plains, and how 
the fresh full-leaved greenery did delight one's heart! 
All things were growing and flourishing, the weeds 
were getting rank, the wildflowers were in bloom, and 
everywhere in home yards were callas and other hot- 
house and summer flowers in prodigal profusion. 

To get as near the tropics on our west coast as possible 
I journeyed to San Diego, and on the way thither I 

30 



On the Borders of Mexico 31 

had my first sight of the Pacific rolHng its thunderous 
surf up on the beach and dimphng softly under the 
half clouded sky as far as the eye could reach. At 
San Diego I renewed my acquaintance with it, and spent 
much of the first dav rambling along the waterside. 
I lingered longest in the section where the fishermen 
dwell. Their little cottages are many of them on piles 
and are over the water at high tide. This has its 
advantages, but there had been a storm the previous 
Sunday which made the pile-dwellers wish their homes 
were on the firm ground. It was as wild a gale as even 
the oldest inhabitant could remember, and the wind 
rose till the spray flew over the cottage platforms and 
wet the floors inside. To make matters worse the 
little rowboats and the fishing craft and some hea\'}' 
timbers got away from their moorings in the harboi 
and butted into the supporting piles of the dwellings. 

"Oh, yes," said one lady, "it blowed so hard it 
done quite a good deal of damage. You see our garden 
out in front here. Ever}T:hin' in it was gettin' to look 
real nice; and now notice that yaller blossoming willow 
bush. It was crowded full o' flowers, but the storm 
just nacherlv pretty near broke it down." 

"We was lucky," said her husband, "that we didn't 
get into no badder troubles. Some houses was let 
down into the water and knocked all to pieces. Our 
house come near goin'. It had only two piles left under 



32 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

the middle; and it got twisted so the door wouldn't 
open, while we was still inside. We begun to think we'd 
be drown, and I took a hatchet and pried off a window- 
casing. Vd 'a' knock the whole darn lights out rather 
than stay in there any longer. When we escaped I 
tried to save some boats that jammed in here next us. 
But when I had one partly pulled out a big wave piled 
twenty or thirty more on top, and I give up. After the 
storm I saved some broken pieces so I got a little of 
my damage back. I have sold part of them and they 
will furnish me tobacco money to last a while, anyway. 

" Fm thinkin' it's goin' to rain again," he remarked as 
we were about to part. " I have a crooked toe that was 
shot in the Civil War, and that pains me every time the 
weather's turnin' bad. It never ain't failed me yet, 
and I feel a storm is comin' now." 

I was still wandering about exploring the town when 
I was accosted by a bareheaded, swarthy gypsy woman 
who wanted to tell my fortune. The charge was two 
bits, she said, and I produced the money. Then she 
made a poor pretense of glancing at the lines of my 
hand and mumbled a sing-song repetition with slight 
variations about my having had much trouble, assert- 
ing in conclusion that, "You have make considerable 
money, but you spend it easy." 

She hit it right about the spending so far as the 
quarter I had just parted with was concerned. Next she 




Early spring 



On the Borders of Mexico 33 

pulled a couple of little threads out of the fringe of her 
shawl, and had me tie two knots in one of them and 
repeat after her, "Go way trouble." "Go way my 
bad luck." 

That done she crumpled up the knotted string, slyly 
substituted the other, which she had kept concealed, 
and told me to pull it out — when lo! the knots were 
gone. Lastly she gave this thread a twist about one of 
my buttons and affirmed that if I didn't "tell nobody 
about it for eight days" I probably wouldn't have "no 
more trouble and bad luck." To make the thing 
certain, however, she wanted another quarter. 

San Diego appealed to me most forcibly in the sug- 
gestions one caught everywhere that the place never 
experienced our savage Eastern winter. Yet there were 
chilly mornings and days of wind or rain, when a fire 
was a comfort. Otherwise everything conspired to 
make one feel it was early summer instead of March. 

One morning I visited Old Town, an outlying 
suburb, which in the early days constituted all there 
was of San Diego. At that time the site of the present 
city was a sheep pasture. The parent village is pretty 
dead now, and many of the ancient adobe structures 
are in ruins, but others are still intact and occupied. 
Such structures are particularly interesting, because 
their massiveness gives them an air of repose and per- 
manence, and because they are characteristic of the 



34 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

common method of building in the days when Cahfornia 
was a part of Mexico. The material employed is a 
very sticky, dark brown clay fashioned into blocks 
about four times the size of an ordinary brick. Some- 
times straw cut up into pieces an inch or two long was 
worked into the clay mud. Wet clay was used as mortar 
when the blocks were laid. The timbers of the floors, 
doorways and windows were built in as the walls were 
in process of erection. 

Eight miles from Old Town, up a neighboring valley, 
is the remains of an ancient Spanish Mission which I 
decided to see. The valley is wide, and its basin is 
mostly cultivated. Much of it was growing to barley, 
oats and other grains, then knee high, and there was 
Indian corn well started, and melons just coming up, 
and an abundance of garden truck of all sorts ready 
for market. The finest tract was farmed by a China- 
man. He had many acres as level as a floor and his 
crops were thriving admirably; but his home buildings 
were dilapidated, and even the house a mere shack. 
The litter of work and carelessness was dubiously 
evident all about, and the premises were so odorous that 
it was no joke to get to leeward of them. 

Judging from the Chinaman's success, I imagined he 
would have rather a rosy opinion of the region, but 
some of the other dwellers in the valley were decidedly 
pessimistic. " California is overrated," said one of them 



On the Borders of Mexico 35 

to me. " Every farm in the state is for sale. You need 
money to enjoy this country, and it takes a good big 
purseful to run a farm and get it into shape to be 
profitable. A poor man, or a man of moderate means 
has no chance. He travels up hill all the time and often 
in the end has to sell out for a song. Lots of people 
have an idea there's money in fruit, but I've noticed 
our fruit growers usually make a profit one season and 
lose the next nine." 

The man did not appear very energetic, and his land 
did not look as if he worked it with much vigor or 
judgment. No doubt he painted the country in tints 
out of his own experience. Another man I talked with 
was a grizzled old fellow of a different type. He was 
carrying a post on his shoulder, and when I accosted 
him he dropped the butt end to the ground. Every 
few minutes he shifted the post up to his shoulder as 
if about to go on, but the conversation would take a 
fresh start and down would go the post once more. 
He did not agree with the neighbor whom I have quoted. 
"Oh, no," said he, "not every place is for sale. The 
majority are, but there's exceptions. I wouldn't sell 
mine — leastways, not unless I got a good big price for it. 

"I was over in Arizona lately," he continued, "and 
on the train that brought me back I had a talk with 
a Missouri man, who was comin' to the coast to settle 
with his whole family; and he said, *My little girl has 



36 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

been thinkin' they have gold houses out in Cahfornia 
and gold sidewalks and gold everything. She says she 
reckons they have gold taters to eat.' 

" It's a good deal the same with the older folks. They 
are often disappointed simply because they have un- 
reasonable expectations. Yes, that's just it, and they've 
got a lot to learn. It ain't no soft job here. There's 
plenty to do all the time, and if you want to succeed 
you haven't hardly got time to talk to anyone. Even 
an industrious man don't find it all straight sailin.' 
This region is naturally kind of a desert. Just now for 
a few years we're havin' rain, and everythin' is green 
and flourishin'. You couldn't have better pasturage, 
and we don't have to feed our stock anything in addi- 
tion to what they pick up themselves, the year through. 
But before this wet spell there was eleven years we only 
had one good rain. The streams went dry, the wells 
went dry, and the feed all shrivelled up in the pastures. 
Why, we had to give the stock cactus to eat. We'd make 
a quick brush fire and take the cactus and singe off 
the thorns, and that singed cactus was what the cattle 
lived on. I sold most of my cows at ten dollars apiece 
the feed got so scanty. 

"Another thing we've found out is that we can't 
raise fruit in this neighborhood. The trees will do 
well for three or four years; but see here," and with 
his post he thumped some clay laid bare in a washed-out 




The launching of the ship 



On the Borders of Mexico 37 

gully, "under the surface soil a foot or two is this old 
adobe, and it's got alkali in it. That's the boy that 
ruins the fruit trees. The roots, as soon as they strike 
it, crumple up, and your trees begin to croak and don't 
flourish any more. 

" But the situation is like this — a man who comes here 
and works hard and uses some common sense and 
adapts himself to the country will prosper. One day I 
was callin' on a genoowine old Dutchman who is livin' 
a few miles away. *Vell,' he says, *dis desert does 
look fine when it rains.' 

"He's got about sixteen children, and you might 
think he'd have trouble supportin' 'em. I mentioned 
something of the sort, but he replied, T make a living 
here,' and he gave a big wink and then said, *and I 
makit one dollar besides.' 

"So can other people." 

It was a half-clouded morning, and the weather was 
reminiscent of a sultry day in June at home. The 
heat was full of moist, growing power, and the pastures 
and waysides were besprinkled with blossoms of every 
hue. Poppies, thistles and morning-glories were easily 
recognized, but most of the blossoms were unfamiliar, 
and they made a pageant of color such as the East 
never witnesses. One's ears were greeted with the buzz 
of flies, the chirrup of insects, and by the croaking of 
frogs on the sodden lowlands. The walk was quite 



38 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

delightful, though not wholly so; for some little gnats 
darted about my face very persistently. The road I 
followed was not a public way, and it was frequently 
interrupted by gates that I had to climb over or open, 
and its markings became less and less distinct till I 
lost them altogether. I was then in a cultivated patch 
of olive trees, and many of the trees were loaded with 
fruit, both green and ripe. The ripe olives looked very 
like plums, and their appearance was so inviting I 
tried one; but it came out of my mouth much quicker 
than it went in. 

I wandered across several fields till I found my road 
again, and at last I reached the old Mission on a terrace 
of a steep hillslope. Much of the original buildings 
is gone. They were used as a cavalry barracks in the 
war of 1846 and later as a sheep fold, and such use, 
added to neglect, has left only remnants; but enough 
still existed of the stout adobe walls to be impressive. 
It overlooked the peaceful, fertile valley. Near by, at 
the foot of the slope, was a grove of ancient olives 
musical with great numbers of birds, and on the borders 
of the grove was a fragment of cactus hedge and a few 
date palms, all that remains of the friars' garden. 

This is the oldest of the California Missions. It was 
founded in 1769, but the ruins do not date back to its 
beginnings; for in its sixth year the Mission was 



On the Borders of Mexico 39 

attacked by hostile Indians, one of the padres was 
killed and the buildings burned to the ground. 

By the end of the century there were seventeen more 
Missions, and three others followed later. It was their 
purpose to instruct and civilize the Indians. The 
founding of a Mission was very simple. After a suitable 
place had been selected in a fertile vallev a cross was 
set up, a booth of branches built, and the ground and 
the booth were consecrated by holy water and chris- 
tened in the name of a saint. If there were Indians in 
the vicinity they were attracted to the spot by the 
ringing of bells swung on the limbs of trees, and presents 
of food, cloth and trinkets were given them to win 
their confidence. Each new Mission had at first only 
two monks. The booth and cross were in their charge, 
and they were to convert and teach all the Indians of 
the neighborhood. Several soldiers and perhaps a few 
partly Christianized Indians served as a guard and 
helpers. The community would have a number of 
head of cattle and some tools and seeds, and with this 
humble equipment those in charge were expected to 
conquer the wilderness and its savage inhabitants. 

As a rule the Indians were of low intelligence and 
brutish habits; but thev were taught to cultivate the 
earth and to do a varietv of mechanical work. They 
felled timber, transported it to the Mission sites, and 
used it, together with adobe and tiles, in erecting the 



40 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

churches and other buildings. Thus in time rose the 
pillars, arched corridors and domes of the stately 
structures that are still impressive even in their ruins. 
Gradually a village grew about each church; for the 
Indians were encouraged to live near by, and some of 
the Mission communities numbered thousands. 

The chief structure at a Mission was usually in the 
shape of a hollow square with a front of four or five 
hundred feet along which extended a gallery. The 
church formed one of the wings, and in the interior was 
a court adorned with trees and a fountain. Round about 
was a corridor whence doors opened into the friars' 
sleeping apartments, workshops, storehouses, school- 
rooms, etc. At sunrise a bell was rung and the Indians 
assembled in the chapel for prayers. Afterward they 
had breakfast and were distributed to their work. 
At eleven they ate dinner, and work was resumed at 
two. An hour before sunset the Angelus bell was tolled 
and labor was abandoned for religious exercises in the 
chapel. Supper followed, and then the Indians were 
free to take part in a dance or other mild amusements. 

The rule of the friars was in the main just and 
kindly. Drunkenness was punished by flogging, and 
the ofi^enders in quarrels between husbands and wives 
were chained together by the legs till they promised to 
keep the peace. Fresh recruits were secured by sending 
out parties of Indians already attached to the new 




-3 






On the Borders of Mexico 41 

mode of life and letting them set forth to the savages its 
advantages, though it is said they were also sometimes 
captured by main force. The domestic animals im- 
ported for the use of the Missions multiplied with 
great rapidity, and in the care of them the Indians 
became very dexterous. Hides, tallow, grain, wine 
and oil were sold to ships visiting the coast, and from 
the proceeds the friars supplied the Indians with 
clothing, tobacco and such other things as appealed to 
the taste or fancy of the savage converts. Surplus 
profits were employed in embellishing the churches. 

The Missions were established at about a day's 
journey apart on the natural route of travel along the 
coast, and they were the usual stopping-places for 
travellers. Whenever one of these sojourners arrived 
he was welcomed with the hospitality of the Bible 
patriarchs. First of all his horse was led away to the 
stables, and the man was escorted to a bath. After- 
ward he was given a plentiful meal and a comfortable 
bed, and he was at liberty to stay as long as he chose. 

The maximum of Mission prosperity was attained 
in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The 
friars and their neophytes owned countless herds of 
cattle, horses, sheep, goats and swine, and produced 
from the ground all their simple needs required. At 
each Mission were inclosed gardens and orchards where 
grew a considerable variety of vegetables and many 



42 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

fruits, including figs, oranges, olives and grapes. But 
white settlers were increasing, and contact with them 
tended to corrupt the Indians and to make them less 
easily controlled. The greed of the newcomers was 
aroused by the wealth of the Missions in land and herds, 
and in 1833 they influenced the Mexican congress to 
pass a law secularizing the Missions and turning over 
their property to public purposes, except for some 
small allowances reserved to maintain the churches. 
This enabled the politicians of the period to plunder 
the Missions very thoroughly, and the administrators 
who were appointed wasted no time in getting the 
tangible property into the hands of themselves and their 
friends. 

So serious was the desolation wrought, and so evil 
were the effects on the Indians that the law was re- 
scinded, but the mischief had been done, and the 
Missions were not able to recuperate. The ruin was 
completed by the American conquest, and the few re- 
maining Indians were driven or enticed away. That 
they and their ancestors had been cultivating the lands 
for three-quarters of a century made no difference. The 
Americans wishing to pre-empt claims did not regard 
the presence of Indian families or communities as any 
more a deterrent than they would have so many coyotes. 
What cared the rude frontiersmen for missionary friars 
or civilized Indians ? They came to squat on public 



On the Borders of Mexico 43 

lands, and they not only took such tracts as pleased 
their fancy, but in some cases the Mission structures 
were demolished for the sake of the timber, tiles and 
other building materials that were in them. 

Every visitor at San Diego makes a trip to the village 
of Tia Juana, just across the Hne in Mexico. The idea 
is cultivated that by so doing one will get a brand new 
impression and that he will see a bit of Mexico which will 
serve as a fair sample of the whole. It is sixteen miles 
down to the line, and a train takes you that far. Close 
by the terminus is a boundary monument, and some 
people find pleasure in standing with one foot in their 
own country and one in foreign territory. Often they 
have themselves photographed in that position. But 
the person who wants to make all he can out of the 
situation jumps back and forth across the line until he 
is tired. Then, when he reaches home and is asked if 
he has been to Mexico, he can truthfully respond, "Oh, 
yes, many times." 

After you have had a look at the monument and 
indulged in such extras as seem desirable, you get into 
an omnibus drawn by four horses, and away you go 
over a road that I should judge had never received any 
attention since it was first travelled. There are holes 
and ruts and bumps and sloughs unnumbered, and 
whenever I thought we were going to capsize in one 
direction, the vehicle was sure to lurch and up went the 



44 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

other side to the danger point. Much of the way was 
across a guUied, brushy level where the floods had 
rampaged. Worse still, we had to ford a swift and 
muddy river. Into it we splashed, and the horses half 
disappeared, while the water swashed up over the wheel- 
hubs and barely missed coming into the 'bus. 

At last we reached Tia Juana. Its attractions were 
not very pronounced. There was just a wide street 
with a few shops and saloons on either side, and at 
some distance a straggling of shanty dwellings. It was 
on a bare plateau, but along the slope that dipped to 
the valley grew a few groups of trees. The plain swept 
away to a series of mountain ridges clothed with cacti 
and sagebrush. Such village men as were not employed 
in the shops seemed to be a lot of loafers, not given to 
exerting themselves much beyond the smoking of 
cigarets. 

The one notable institution of the place is a bull-ring, 
and the amphitheatre of seats rises conspicuously just 
outside the hamlet. It is the patronage of the Ameri- 
cans that keeps the thing going, and any Sunday on 
which there is to be a fight they come from San Diego 
in swarms. Extra trains are put on, and teams drive 
from the town and from the ranches for miles around 
to serve as stages for conveying the excitement seekers 
from the station to the bull-ring. The chief financier 
of the enterprise is a Mexican who has a diminutive 



On the Borders of Mexico 45 

butcher shop in the village. It seems a somewhat 
appropriate branch of his everyday industry, but what 
can one say for the Americans who encourage the savage 
and degrading exhibitions ? 

The cost is a dollar for a seat in the sun, two dollars 
for a seat in the shade, and the audience is sure to number 
at least a thousand, and may rise to twenty-five hundred. 
It was said that the patronage had fallen off decidedly 
the year before because several horses had been gored 
to death. This was too much for the tender sensibilities 
of the American audience. The on-lookers were willing 
to see bulls killed, but not horses, and many of them 
refrained afterward from going. So now the toreadors 
have to fight on foot. 

Between Tia Juana and San Diego is some very fine 
lemon country, and on my way back I had a talk with 
the owner of a twenty-acre orchard. "I come from 
Nebraska two years ago," he said, "and I wouldn't go 
back to live if you'd give me the whole state. It's too 
cold, and they have blizzards there that blow the trains 
off the railroad tracks. I looked around down here and 
found a feller that was sick of the lemon business, and 
we made a swap. I give him sixteen hundred acres I 
had in Nebraska, and he give me his twenty-acre lemon 
orchard. Some of my neighbors up where I come from 
told me I was makin' a poor bargain, but the Nebraska 
land was only worth about fifty cents an acre; so the 



46 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

value of my sixteen hundred acres didn't count up 
very heavy. The feller I sold to didn't really want the 
property, and he made another dicker and let it go for 
the furnishings of a shooting-gallery in Los Angeles 
worth very little over three hundred dollars. 

"They'd been havin' a spell of dry years, and the 
lemon orchards wa'n't payin' expenses; but the weather 
turned about and the trees began to do first-rate. It 
beats all how they will bear. There's blossoms and 
green fruit of every size and the ripe lemons right on 
the same tree the year through. I shall clear six or 
seven thousand dollars this year. Of course there's 
considerable expense, and I keep from two to six men 
at work and pay 'em a dollar and a half for a nine hour 
day. I don't hire any Mexicans — I don't like their 
color; and I don't hire niggers or Chinamen. I do 
considerable myself, but I feel that I'm kind o' gettin' 
lazy like everybody else that lives in this climate. It's 
very different from what I been used to. You notice 
the old men here. They ain't got the vim and spirit 
they have in the East. Back in Nebraska, an old man 
would think nothing of chasing a critter that had broke 
loose, but take a man of the same age in California, and 
you couldn't get up a run with a pitchfork. 

"There's something about the air that slows you 
down; and I have an idee that once you get used to it 
you ain't really contented anywhere else. Some people 



On the Borders of Mexico 47 

recollect their old home, in New England may be, and 
they think they'd like to go back there to live. One 
man whose home was near my lemon ranch was always 
talkin' that way, and finally he sold out and went; but 
inside of two months he was back. Things there wasn't 
quite like what he remembered them, and the folks he 
used to know was mostly gone or changed. So he de- 
cided California was the place for him." 

Nearly a score of miles east of San Diego is the broad 
fertile valley of El Cajon. It lies among the hills with 
lofty rugged mountains overlooking it from farther 
inland, and I went to see it, attracted by the fact that 
it is famous for its great vineyards whence are shipped 
each season hundreds of carloads of raisins. An 
irrigating flume circles the hillslopes, but this artificial 
watering does not entirely take the place of rain, and 
in dry years the crop is sure to be a partial failure. 
Most of the ranches of this handsome vale were 
mortgaged, I was told. There are so many chances in 
weather, in disease, in pests, and in price that a perma- 
nent success in fruit growing in Southern California 
seems to be somewhat rare. It is a not uncommon 
belief that dry and wet periods alternate, each covering 
a series of several years. Things boom in the wet cycle, 
while in the lean years many orchards and vineyards 
fare so badly that they become almost worthless. 



48 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

I had come to El Cajon by train with the intention 
of walking back, and presently I was plodding along 
toward San Diego, most of the time on the level mesas, 
but now and then dipping into a valley. There were 
frequent orchards of oranges, grape-fruit, lemons and 
olives, some thrifty, some far otherwise. The orange 
trees, though still loaded with fruit were coming into 
blossom, and in places the air was honeyed with the 
perfume. Most of the homes I passed were common- 
place little cottages, frequently only a story high, apt 
to be ugly from plainness, but sometimes equally ugly 
from over-ornamentation. Yet there were a number of 
really substantial and attractive dwellings, fine in them- 
selves and charming in their flowery environment. 
One home had a great rank hedgerow of roses full of 
white blossoms; but much of the land was as wild as it 
ever had been, and was brushed over with chaparral 
and other shrubs, waist high. A good deal of this 
was government land that could be bought for a 
dollar an acre. The country was at its greenest, but 
when the spring rains were past the ground would 
gradually parch and by July all the fields and pastures 
and waysides where there was not an artificial water 
system would be clothed in somber brown, and they 
would so continue till near the end of the year. 

Half way in my journey I was overtaken by a young 
fellow in a buggy, and he invited me to ride. I was 




A Mexican 



On the Borders of Mexico 49 

glad of the opportunity, for I was getting weary, and 
the landscape did not present much variety. He was 
from the East a twelve-month before and had been 
spending most of his time "cow-punching" in the 
mountains. He expressed the opinion that the country 
offered excellent chances to make money. But, if it 
was easy to make, it was also uncommonly easy to 
spend; "and yet,'* said he, "you can live here as 
cheaply as anywhere if you choose to do so. Now San 
Diego is quite a resort of old Civil war pensioners. 
They're there on the plaza every day sitting around 
under the shadow of the palms. I've talked with 'em 
and they say a man can bach' it — that is, get feed for 
himself livin' as a bachelor — for a dollar and a quarter 
a week, and a room will cost a dollar more. So a 
moderate pension will support a man without his doing 
anything." 

In my own experience I found the gentle conditions 
of life were best exemplified by a man who dwelt near 
the beach. I had the feeling at first that I had fallen 
in with a shipwrecked mariner on a desert island. 
Just back out of reach of the waves he had a shanty 
seven feet one way by eight the other, and barely high 
enough to stand up in. It was built of all sorts of rub- 
bish; and nearly everything in the house and round 
about might have been saved from some castaway 
vessel, and indeed was largely the salvage of the sea, 



50 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

The interior walls were crowded with shelves, and 
from frequent nails were suspended many articles of 
use and ornament. The furnishings included a number 
of pictures and newspapers, and a few books. There 
was a bed with a coverlet made of an old sail, a chair 
tinkered out of some pieces of board, a rusty little stove, 
a muzzle-loading musket, and quantities of odds and 
ends. The two tiny, single-paned windows each had a 
board shutter inside and reminded me of the portholes 
of a ship. 

I saw all these details with some thoroughness because 
I was caught by a shower and was invited to take shelter 
in the hermit's hut. Outside he had a shed with a roof 
made of an old boat turned keel upward, and he had 
various whirligig contrivances set up in his yard — 
weather vanes in the form of ships with sails set and 
propellers revolving, and a kind of windmill of odd 
construction that turned a coffee grinder. 

The proprietor of this peculiar conglomerate was a 
Maine man originally, and was a person of intelligence 
and some education. His chief companions were cats, 
and I saw half a dozen or more dozing around the 
premises. He got all the wood he needed to burn from 
the sea, and the sea furnished him with much of his 
food. Most of his fishing he did with a hook and line, 
but sometimes used a spear when he went after halibut. 
His gun had been neglected of late, because the last 



On the Borders of Mexico 51 

time he fired it he was out on the water after ducks and 
it nearly kicked him out of his boat. The money he 
needed to supply his few wants he got by digging and 
marketing a few clams, and by taking care of some 
boats belonging to the town boys, and by catching 
crawfish which he sold for bait. During the twenty 
years he had lived there he had never had an overcoat. 
It wasn't his habit to stand around on windy street 
corners, he explained, and therefore in that mild climate 
he didn't need one. 

He was something of a radical in the matter of 
clothing, yet it is a fact that the climate is singularly 
equable, and so it is along the coast of the entire state; 
for though the northern extremity of California is in 
the latitude of Boston and its southern end is opposite 
Charleston, the thermometer seldom anywhere drops 
below freezing or rises to what is often experienced in 
New York City by the end of May. The breezes from 
the Pacific keep the land cool in summer and warm in 
winter. 

Note. — The visitor at San Diego can choose among numberless 
hotels, from the most modest to the most palatial; or, if he prefers, 
can camp on Coronado Beach. The climate is unfailingly gentle, 
and the ocean and fertile valleys and distant mountains furnish 
many attractions. Most points of interest are easily accessible, and 
the traveller with limited time can see much in a very few days. There 
is excellent fishing and bathing. The glimpse of Mexico one gets at 
Tia Juana should not be missed, nor the ancient Mission and its olive 
trees, nor the adobe homes in "Old Town^" nor the caverned cliffs 
at La Jolla. 



Ill 



A RUSTIC VILLAGE 



NOT for a long time haa I been in a place that 
so filled me with delight as did Capistrano in 
Southern California. Such a dreamy, easy- 
going community — no hurry, no worry — such a luxuri- 
ant valley, such lofty environing hills with the green 
turf clothing every rounded outline! Then, to the 
north, were the rocky peaks of a mountain range, 
serene and blue in the distance. The village itself 
was a queer huddle of primitive houses, some no more 
than board shanties, and none of them large or in the 
least pretentious. However, the feature that gave 
especial distinction to the hamlet was the ruin of an old 
Mission, still impressive, calm and beautiful, and 
appealing powerfully to the imagination. It would 
interest one anywhere, and we can boast of so few 
ruins that have age and noble proportions in this new 
land of ours that the appeal was doubly strong. Though 
the Mission buildings are much shattered, some parts 
continue in use even to this day. The chime of four 
bells performs its accustomed service, one portion is 

52 




The story book 



A Rustic Village 53 

used as a church, and there is a fine corridor in an 
excellent state of preservation. 

The structures were begun in 1776. Adobe was 
largely used for the walls, but the church was of stone 
with a lofty tower and a roof made of solid concrete 
domes. At early mass on Christmas morning in 18 12 
there was an earthquake that toppled over the tower 
onto the body of the building, and the entire roof 
crashed down. Forty-nine people were killed. "We've 
had no earthquake worth mentioning since," one of 
the leading Americans of the vicinity informed me. 
"Of course there have been a good many tremors, but 
they have been mere sardines compared with that 
shock of 1 8 12, and we pay no more attention to them 
than we would to a spatter of rain." 

The village was charmingly pastoral. The insects 
thrummed, the children laughed and called at their 
play, the roosters crowed in endless succession, the 
dogs barked, and the cattle lowed from the luscious 
hillslopes. And what throngs of birds there were! 
I saw them flitting everywhere and the air was a-thrill 
with their songs. The mocking-birds were lilting their 
varied notes, the turtle-doves sounded their mellow 
calls, and in the vicinity of the buildings were multi- 
tudes of linnets — pretty little birds and cheerful song- 
sters, but very destructive to grapes, apricots, peaches, 
pears and berries. In the pastures the red-winged 



54 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

blackbirds abounded, hovering about the sheep and 
cattle. Often they could be seen on the sheep^s backs 
picking off ticks. Meadow larks were frequently within 
sight and hearing, but their song was decidedly coarser 
and less plaintive than in the East. I observed many 
gay little birds known as "canaries," and there were 
flickers and pewees and bee-martins and thrashers and 
numerous others. Of them all I perhaps most enjoyed 
the swallows. A few had been noticed flying about for 
a week or two; but the mass of them had come the 
evening before I arrived. Now they were darting 
everywhere, building under the eaves of the houses and 
barns and establishing a populous colony beneath the 
loftiest cornice of the old Mission ruin. Far up against 
the blue sky I would sometimes see the buzzards soar- 
ing. Nothing in the way of oflFal escapes their alert 
eyes or scent. Back in the hills, if a man killed a gopher 
or a rattlesnake or some such little creature, there 
might not be a buzzard in sight at the time, but the 
next day half a dozen would be around. 

On the noon that I reached Capistrano the main 
street was full of teams tied to the wayside hitching 
rails, and yet the place seemed mysteriously devoid of 
human beings. At last I discovered the male inhabi- 
tants of the region gathered at the far end of the street 
in and about an adobe Justice Court. The wide door- 
way was jammed full of men peering over each others' 




On the porch at the village store 



A Rustic Village 55 

shoulders, and the case was evidently of the most 
absorbing and vital interest. At length, hov^ever, the 
gathering broke up, the village became populous, and 
one after another the teams were unhitched and driven 
away. The excitement, it seemed, concerned two 
individuals, one of whom had said the other was a liar, 
and the latter had responded that the former was a son 
of a gun and likened him to a variety of similar obnox- 
ious things. But the court failed to get together a jury 
and the judge had dismissed the case. As a clerk in a 
local store expressed it, "The two fellers remind me of 
my schooldays when one of us kids'd sometimes go and 
complain to the teacher saying, * Jimmy's been a-callin* 
me names.' 

" *What's he been callin' you V she asks him. 

" * I don't like to tell you,' the boy says, * It's awful 
bad things.' " 

While I was in this store a fat old Indian entered. 
He had short hair, wore overalls, and except for his 
color was not much different in dress and appearance 
from a white workingman. His breath was odorous 
of liquor, and he was loquacious and happy. The clerk 
introduced him as the best sheep-shearer in the county. 
He shook hands and said, "Me good man! You good 
man .?" 

In talking with him it was not easy to catch the mean- 
ing of some of his remarks. The common patois of the 



56 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

region used by both the whites and the darker skinned 
folk is based on Spanish, but with an intermixture of 
Indian and of words borrowed from the EngHsh. The 
old sheep-shearer had about fifty other Indians working 
under him in the season, got five dollars a day himself 
and two dollars for his wife who did the cooking for 
the gang. The wealth he acquired did not stick to 
him. He gambled it away. 

Gambling was a common recreation among the 
villagers, and the place supported four "blind pigs," 
or unlicensed saloons. There were always loafers 
hanging about their porches and a noisy crowd inside 
playing pool. One of the Capistrano experts at poker 
was a Chinaman who had a ranch just outside the 
village. He lived in a dirty little hut there and kept 
his horse under a pepper tree with only the shelter 
afforded by the leafage. For ten miles around the 
people depended on him to supply them with vegetables. 
Some of the poorest families in the village bought of 
him, rather than take the trouble to raise their own 
vegetables, though they have the finest kind of land 
right at their doors. "He can't hardly speak three 
words of English," I was told; "but he'll sit down and 
play poker all right with any of us. Perhaps he'll lose 
fifty dollars or more in a single sitting and not go home 
till the small hours of the morning; and yet he'll be at 
his work that day as usual without batting an eye. 
No doubt, on the whole, he makes oftener than he loses." 



A Rustic Village 57 

One of my acquaintances was a short, stooping old 
German with a broken nose. He lived in an adobe house 
with walls two or three feet thick. "You keep der 
adobe dry," said he, "und it vill last forever; but der 
vather from der eaves spatters oop und vashes avay 
der bottom till it breaks down unless you be careful. 
Some puts on cement to make der vails look nice und 
last more long. We do not build adobe houses now. 
It is quicker to use boards, und you cannot keep them 
so clean as a board house, und the air is not so goot 
inside. Some of der adobe houses are one hundred 
years old already, I tink. I haf not lif here always. 
My business is a bee ranch, twelve miles back in der 
hills. My home vas out dere till der dry years make 
me move. If you git no rain dere be no flowers — no 
not'ing. Perhaps der bees can find enough to keep 
alive, bud dere is no vork you can do to help. Der 
vather give out und everything, und you might as veil 
come avay. Last year it vas goot — all right, und I 
t'ink dis year be good. So I soon shall haf to go dere. 
Dem hills are chock full o' flowers now — oh, yes — like 
a flower garden. I haf not been dere since last August. 
In another month the bees begin to swarm, und I haf 
to get ready for dot. You haf to be on der vatch or 
der swarms go avay. It ish not often dey vill go into 
another hive demselves, Dey come out und hang on a 



58 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

bush while der scouts are lookin' for a goot place. 
Maybe a place is found und dey be off in one half hour. 
Maybe dey hang on der bush two, three day or a veek. 

" Many time we haf bees fly over dis town. Perhaps 
dey stop und someone catch und put dem in an old box, 
und dey make honey. Bud der honey ish not much 
goot. Der flowers down here are not like dose on der 
hills. Here der country soon be yellow mit wild mus- 
tard, und dat make der honey a bitter taste und catch 
in your throat, just like as if you eat too much pepper. 
You couldn't sell it. Sometimes a swarm vill get in a 
house. It vill go in a crack, und perhaps der bees vill 
make honey in der ceiling, und it vill begin to leak 
through. Den der people haf to tear a hole und drive 
der bees out. 

"Der honey in der hills is white as vather. Der bees 
haf hundreds of kind of flowers dere, but der best is 
der sagebrush. I wear a veil when I handle der bees 
und gloves mitout fingers. You cannot tell ven der 
bees vill sting — some days not at all, und other days 
dey joost like bulldogs. Dey sting ven dey feels like 
it, according to der veather. 

"Each hive of bees vill make from one hundred to 
five hundred pounds of honey in a goot season, und I 
get about thirty tons from my two hundred stands. 
Der bees fill der frames each season half a dozen times. 
We extract der honey by puttin' der frames in a machine 



A Rustic Village 59 

dat whirls dem and throws der honey out, bud leaves 
der comb to be put back in der hives. Dis vay der bees 
are save much vork, und dey get twice der honey dey 
used to did. In July already you can do nothing any 
more. Der best flowers are past und things are getting 
dry und der bees can only make what dey need dem- 
selves." 

We were sitting on the post office piazza, and here 
we were joined just then by a man who was a 
former resident of the village and had recently arrived 
for a visit. He accosted my companion and they were 
soon discussing incidents of the past. Among other 
things they mentioned cock fights, and the German 
said, "Eighteen or nineteen years ago dey use to haf 
a cock fight mos' every Sunday, but I didn't see him 
now for a long time.'' 

When the newcomer moved on, the German happened 
to turn his eyes toward home and remarked, "I haf 
now to go to my house. Dere is a peacock from my 
neighbor dot I can see on der roof. Sometime it vill 
stay dere all der night and holler; so I vill drive it off." 
The peacock belonged on a place that formerly was 
the home of Don Foster, the feudal lord of the region. 
He had hundreds of thousands of acres, and sheep and 
cattle unnumbered, and he set a generous table free to 
all comers. Indeed, two or three dozen of the villagers 
were constantly fed at his board and he really supported 



6o Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

"the whole shooting match;" for they did practically 
no work. 

The most exciting period in the village history was 
that immediately following the acquisition of California 
by the Americans. To quote a leading citizen, "There 
was then a band of sixty or seventy disgruntled Mexi- 
cans known as * Manillas' who were a terror to all the 
region. They had a leader by the name of Basquez 
who was credited with all sorts of savagery and wild 
escapades. He delighted to come unexpectedly when 
a dance was in progress and join in the merry-making 
and cut the fandango. Then, again, he would dash 
into a village with all his troop and commence firing. 
At once there'd be a yell, * Basquez is in town!* and 
you'd ought to see the people hide. 

"The Manillas sailed in here one day and captured 
the town, all except Don Foster's house. There's one 
old man living in Capistrano now who at the time of 
that raid had a store here. When they broke into his 
place he crawled under a big basket among some rags 
and rubbish in a corner. He heard the Mexicans 
helping themselves to his firearms and nice things, but 
he kept quiet and as soon as it was night he escaped 
to Don Foster's. After about a week the Manillas got 
news that the sheriff was comin' with a posse from Los 
Angeles to punish them, and they went and bush- 
whacked him and killed all but one man. The sheriff 



A Rustic Village 6 1 

made a brave fight, and as he lay dying he kept firing 
his pistol at the fellows as long as he could hold it. 

"In a short time another and bigger posse was 
gathered. Then the Mexicans scattered, but within a 
few months they'd nearly all been hunted down. When 
one was caught there were no legal proceedings. He 
was just hung to a sycamore tree, or stood up against 
an adobe wall and shot. Last of all they waylaid Bas- 
quez and shot him all to pieces. 

"This was a much bigger place years ago. In 1870 
there were nearly two thousand inhabitants. Now 
there are less than four hundred. But in those days 
they were practically all Mexicans and Indians, and 
they didn't work any more than was necessary to exist. 
A few watermelons and a sack or two of beans will 
suffice a Mexican family for a year. They live from 
hand to mouth, and are content to half starve rather 
than exert themselves. Why, an energetic American 
will raise a crop of walnuts and clear in a single season 
four or five thousand dollars, which is more than a 
Mexican would clear in four or five thousand years. 

"Most of the Indians have drifted off to the reserva- 
tions to get the benefit of Uncle Sam's coddling. We've 
managed to pauperize nearly the whole race. If some- 
one else will support them they quit doing anything for 
themselves and are just loafers. As for the Mexicans 
they were never reconciled to the change of government, 



62 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

and when there come a mining excitement down in 
their home country many of them went there and never 
returned. In spite of the decrease of numbers we 
really get more out of the land than ever before. Never- 
theless there's plenty of laziness still. Work is plenty 
and men can earn a dollar and a half a day; but if 
they take a job they soon are tired or get too much 
money and lay off. A Mexican with five dollars will 
spend it like a lord. He is very apt to get drunk on 
Saturday night, and you never know whether he will 
be back to his work Monday morning or not. Some 
families are so shiftless we are obliged to support 'em. 
The county allows such from five to ten dollars a month. 
But they don't consider themselves indigents. They 
are, rather, indignants. We have no paupers. They 
call themselves * pensioners' and think it an honor to 
get public aid." 

English walnut growing had chief place among the 
local industries, and there were a number of extensive 
groves. The trees spread out like apple trees, but have 
a smooth light-gray bark. In the walnut harvest-time 
the school closes for six weeks to give the children a 
chance to help gather the crop. Some of the nuts fall 
of themselves, but a large proportion are thrashed off 
with poles. Often the poles have a hook on the end 
and by their aid the branches are shaken. The ground 
is free from weeds and has been gone over with a 



A Rustic Village 63 

smoother so that the picking up is easy. A sack is the 
usual receptacle, but the women use their aprons. The 
nuts are spread on big racks to dry, where they are 
stirred once in a while with a garden rake. In two 
days of clear warm weather they are ready to ship. 

There were a number of the great slatted drying 
benches in a yard back of my hotel. A few nuts were 
still left on the frames, and I often loitered there and 
feasted. If I chose I could supplement the nuts with 
oranges picked from trees in the garden. The hotel 
was an old-time stage-route tavern — a big, long two- 
story building with a piazza and balcony on both front 
and rear. I had to go upstairs outside and walk along 
the balcony to get to my room, which was a rather bare 
and shabby apartment, with a bed that had two boxes 
under it to prop up the slats. "We had a heavy-weight 
sleeping in your bed last night," explained the land- 
lord, "and he broke through." 

Behind the hotel were all sorts of whitewashed barns 
and sheds and shacks, including a kitchen and dining- 
room which were under a roof by themselves. Sus- 
pended from a fuU-foliaged pepper tree was a frame- 
work box covered with fly-netting. This served for a 
refrigerator. Among the various lodgers at the hotel 
when I arrived were three men who were driving a 
couple of wagons to San Diego. They had been stop- 
ping four days on account of rains that had flooded 



64 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

the rivers. There were no bridges, and the quicksands 
at the fords were treacherous. That evening one of 
the men came into the office and sat down on the 
counter. The landlord entered soon after, and he too 
roosted on the counter. 

"What was that noise I heard as I passed through 
the yard .?" asked the traveller. " It was in your barn, 
and, by gee! I thought it was snoring." 

"That's what it was," replied the landlord. "It 
was my old black horse. He can snore to beat the band. 
He lies down flat with his head stretched out on the 
ground, and at it he goes. You punch him to wake 
him up, and he grunts just like a person that's dead 
tired. He's the darndest horse I ever see." 

"Well," said the traveller, "my father used to have 
a pair of horses that was great hands for sugar. When 
we got 'em out to go anywhere they wouldn't start 
unless we give 'em each a lump of sugar. Without 
that you couldn't get 'em to budge — not to save your 
neck from the rope. Those horses was a cute pair. 
One time some of us young fellers took 'em and drove 
to the beach for a picnic. We left 'em on a hill not far 
from the shore tied to the wagon, one on each side. 
Then we went down to the sea and fooled around and 
had a swim, and by the time we dumb back up the hill 
we was hungry as wolves. We'd left our lunch in the 
back end of the wagon. It was in a handle basket that 



A Rustic Village 65 

had a lid flopping up from either way; and, sir, those 
horses had got the covers up, one workin' on this side, 
one on that, and eaten every blessed thing, pie and all. 
My, v^a'n't we mad! We made 'em pay for their grub 
though by running 'em home, seven miles in thirty 
minutes." 

"You've decided to leave tomorrow, have you?" 
said the landlord. 

"Yes," answered the other, "and I'd have gone 
before if we hadn't been drivin' mules. A horse with 
a load stuck in a quicksand will try its best to struggle 
out; but a mule will just lie down, and as soon as a 
mule's ears get full of water there's no saving him. 
He'll drown in spite of all you can do." 

In response to some questions of mine the landlord 
became reminiscent. "My people come here in 1870," 
said he, "about fifteen years before the railroad was 
built, and papa bought the store which is now the hotel 
office. Capistrano was on the main route north and 
south, but there was no place in town where travellers 
could stay. They used to bother papa asking for 
accommodations, and finally he built on to the old store 
and made this big two-story hotel, and by golly, in 
those days it was jammed all the time. The stable 
was full too, and we kept a regular hostler. From the 
stable alone we took in nearly a thousand dollars a 
month. The daily stages, one going south, one going 



66 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

north, met here at midnight, and we always had hot 
coffee ready for persons that wanted it. You've noticed 
how the village people go and hang around the depot 
to see the trains come in. Well, they used to gather 
at our hotel just as thick to see those midnight stages 
arrive. The building of the railroad made a great 
sensation in the town. When the first engine poked 
her nose in sight a good many of the people fled to their 
homes and buried themselves under the bed-clothes. 
It was weeks before some of *em would come out of 
their rooms, and there's those here today that you 
could no more get on a train than you could get them 
to fly. If they have to go to Santa Ana, twenty-five 
miles away, they'll squat in the back end of a lumber 
wagon and jolt along that fashion rather than trust 
themselves to the train. 

"This was a rough town in the old days. Behind 
the counter in our store we had a pistol every few feet 
to be ready for emergencies. We ran a bar in connec- 
tion with the store, and one day an Indian come in 
and wanted liquor. He was drunk already, and I told 
him he couldn't have any more. That didn't suit him 
and he drew a knife on me. I picked up a pistol and 
gave him a welt with the butt that laid him flat on his 
back. Then I took him by the heels and dragged him 
out into the street. I thought he was dead, but pretty 
soon he drew up first one foot and then the other. After 




<5o 

o 

■-Si 

'-I 



-Si 
to 

55 






A Rustic Village 67 

that he tried to sit up, but he'd roll over back on the 
ground. At last, however, he made out to crawl away. 

"Papa had almost the same experience with a 
Mexican. The fellow stooped down and took from his 
bootleg a knife eighteen inches long and sharpened on 
both edges. But while he was stooping papa got a 
couple of pistols and poked 'em into his face as he 
looked up and said, *You give me that knife or I'll 
blow the top of your head off.' 

" 'Boss, don't shoot,' the fellow said, and he laid 
down the knife. 

'I'm goin' to take that knife up to Los Angeles,' 
papa told him, *and leave it and your name with the 
sheriff, and the next time you don't behave they'll come 
down here and kill you.' 

"The Mexican was scared. * Don't do that, boss,' 
he begged. * You give me back my knife, and I'll work 
for you as long as you want.' 

"So finally papa give him the knife, and after that 
the Mexican was his best friend. There was nothing 
the fellow wouldn't do for him. 

"You ought to be here the last day of Lent — Judas 
Day, we call it. The night before, it is customary for 
the Mexicans to ransack the village and steal buggies 
and tools and anything they can carry off, and they 
make a big pile of all this plunder just outside the fence 
in front of the old Mission. Then they take a worn-out 



68 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

suit of clothes and stuff it full of weeds and stick it up 
on top of the pile, and that is Judas. Next they get 
an old dress and stuff that full of weeds and set it up 
side of Judas to represent his wife. In the morning 
when we wake up we find all the vehicles and loose 
things that were around our yards stacked up over by 
the Mission, with those two scarecrow figures on top. 
But the best of the performance comes in the afternoon 
when the Mexicans bring to the village two half-wild 
bulls from the hills. They tie Judas to one, and Judas's 
wife to the other and chase the creatures up and down 
the street till the two figures are torn to tatters. 

"There was one Judas Day a tramp come to town, 
and he stopped at the store and bought a couple of 
dozen eggs. As he was goin' out of the door carryin* 
the eggs in a bucket papa says to him, 'They're just 
turnin' the bulls loose out there, and you'd better wait 
a while.' 

" But he said he was in a hurry and he wouldn't stop. 
We watched him, and about the time he got in the middle 
of the street one of the bulls come tearin' along and 
hits him in the seat of the pants. He went one way 
and his eggs went another, and that would have been 
the end of him if the vaqueros hadn't galloped to his 
rescue. He was mad and he went to Judge Bacon's 
office and said, T want to have these fellows out here 
arrested. They've been lettin' wild and vicious animals 



A Rustic Village 6g 

loose in the street and IVe been knocked down, and 
two dozen eggs Fd just bought are all smashed.' 

" *Well,' the Judge said, *I don't Hke to arrest these 
men. This is an annual celebration, and the men 
themselves didn't do the damage. If anyone is to be 
arrested it ought to be the bull.' 

" * I don't care who or what it is you arrest,' the tramp 
said; * I want justice done.' 

" * Don't bother me any longer,' the Judge said, and 
he pulled out a dollar. *Here, take this and go buy 
some more eggs,' said he. 

"So the fellow left satisfied." 

The traveller sitting beside the landlord now got 
down off the counter and stretched himself "Who was 
the man that was here to dinner and went away just 
afterward on the train .?" he inquired. 

"It was a doctor," the landlord replied. "He had 
some thought of settling here; but I told him he'd 
starve to death. You see the people avoid callin' a 
doctor till the sick person has one foot in the grave and 
the other following after. The old women think they 
can cure most anyone with herbs and weeds, and they 
keep dosing the sick person till he's nearly dead. Then 
if the doctor can pull him through things are all right; 
but if the doctor has his patient die on him they'll 
never pay for his services, 



70 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

"Whenever there's a death, whether it is day or 
night, the first thing that is done is to make a run for 
the Mission to toll the bells. They toll the two big 
ones for a grown person and the two little ones for a 
child. The bells toll for ten minutes, and all the friends 
and relatives start for the house of mourning — get up 
out of their beds to go, if it is night. The corpse is 
dressed in what had been the deceased's best clothes 
and is put on a table, and candles are lighted and set 
about on the table, and outside on the porch. When 
all this has been done the company kneel and sing a 
hymn. Each new arrival who comes later kneels by 
the body and says a prayer, and some of the women 
are praying pretty constantly. A crowd is hanging 
around all the time till after the funeral. 

"On the day of the death, or the one following, some 
of the men go up to the cemetery to dig the grave; 
but they have a big demijohn of wine with them, and 
they're sure to quit when they've got down about three 
feet. The next night there is a wake and a feast. It is 
the fashion to eat, drink and be merry and fight. If 
the night is cool the men and boys build a fire outside 
which they gather around. By three or four in the 
morning they are ready to scrap. They are full of their 
cheap wine then, and it don't require much to stir 
their anger. 

"The morning after the wake, at ten o'clock, the bell 







o 



A Rustic Village 71 

begins to toll for the funeral and the grave-diggers 
hustle off to finish their work. An hour later the 
funeral takes place. The coffin is usually an ordinary 
box made in the village and covered v^ith black cloth 
for an adult, white for a child. On the cloth are 
fastened many flowers, and crosses and other figures 
made out of tissue and gold papers. The coffin is carried 
on men's shoulders to the church where the people sing 
a hymn and then go to the grave bearing the coffin in 
relays. At the cemetery they sing again, and recite a 
prayer. Lastly the body is lowered into the grave and 
every man, woman and child tosses in a handful of 
dirt." 

For twenty-five dollars a family can have a priest 
conduct the funeral, and w^hile he goes through the 
sacred rites, the coffin reposes on a table in the church. 
For fifty dollars a more elaborate service can be had, 
and the coffin rests on two tables, one placed on the 
other, while for seventy-five dollars the coffin has three 
tables beneath and the priest puts on his full robes, 
swings the censer, brings forth the silver candlesticks 
and makes the ceremony superlatively impressive. 

Weddings take place at the church at high noon, 
and the rest of the day and the night till broad daylight 
is spent in feasting and dancing and in eating a barbe- 
cued beef. 



72 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

A christening is also an occasion for "a big blowout." 
It takes place on Sunday, of course, and outside of the 
Mission in the churchyard is a crowd of men and boys 
who, as soon as the christening party comes forth, begin 
to shout and fire pistols and guns, and they follow the 
party home banging away as they go. 

An Eastern girl, not long before, had told me some- 
thing of her experience as a school teacher in San Diego 
County. She was twenty miles back from the railroad 
among the hills. The people were Americans, but they 
were shiftless and ignorant, and the women and children 
did most of the work. The man at the place where she 
boarded was a fair sample of what the other men were. 
He did not drink or smoke and was in no wise vicious, 
but he didn't amount to anything. The woman and 
her children looked after the garden, took care of the 
cows, raised the chickens, harvested the crops, and 
brought the house water from a spring a half mile 
distant. The older girls, when they came from school, 
would put on overalls and milk the cows. Often the 
children were dismissed from school to run the mowing- 
machine and get in the oats and barley which were 
raised for hay. The woman would even go and dig 
greasewood roots which they cut up for household fuel. 
Sometimes she would get ready a load of the roots, and 
the man would take the load to the nearest town to sell. 
He occasionally did a little ploughing, but he would exert 



A Rustic Village 73 

himself most in hunting wild bees that had made their 
homes in the hollow oaks. 

There was no feminine timidity in that region. The 
girls were ready to kill rattlesnakes as often as they 
encountered them and all the women could shoot. Every 
few days the teacher's landlady went out with her gun 
and would return with five or six rabbits. 

The children were all apt to be at school regularly; 
but this was because short attendance would mean a 
curtailing of the school money. The parents, however, 
were not at all particular to have their progeny there 
on time, or to have them stay the sessions out. Still, 
they preferred a clean record, and in order that the 
children should not be marked tardy they requested 
the teacher to turn the clock back an hour or so in the 
morning. Their previous teacher had done this, they 
said. The pupils were very docile and patient. They 
seemed not to have life enough to be mischievous, and 
they could be kept on the same lesson for two weeks 
and never utter a complaint. Indeed, they would study 
it just as faithfully at the end of that period as at the 
beginning. 

This glimpse of educational conditions stimulated a 
desire to visit the school at Capistrano. I found about 
seventy-five children in two rooms, the little ones under 
a young woman, the upper grades under a young man. 
They were an odd mixture, whites and Mexicans and 



74 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

Indians, and various combinations of the races. The 
dark-skinned children are as a whole lazy and un- 
reliable. They would as soon tell an untruth as not, 
if it will be accepted. As one man said, "They are like 
a Chinaman — if he steals and is found out, his act is a 
sin. Otherwise, he esteems his dishonesty a virtue." 

Many of the children have only a vague understand- 
ing of English, and this makes their progress in school 
doubly slow. The building and its surroundings and 
the two teachers were all that could be desired. A 
generation ago the place had no school, but one day a 
New England resident of the village stumbled on the 
fact that they could get money from the state for edu- 
cational purposes. This man was the local Justice of 
the Peace, and known as Judge Bacon. "The people 
here didn't want to learn anything," said one of the 
early settlers in telling me the story, "and if a school of 
the usual sort had been established they wouldn't have 
attended. They'd heard of such a thing as a public 
school, but they didn't really know what it was. Why, 
these billy-goats had the idea it was a sort of institution 
to make Protestants out of 'em. To get around that 
snag Bacon went to the padre and asked him to start 
the school and teach it himself in his little rooms at the 
old Mission. 

"Well, the padre couldn't spell one syllable of 
English, but Bacon got him to undertake the job, and 



A Rustic Village 75 

dug up a diploma from somewhere allowing him to 
accept the position. The children came, and he kept 
along and kept along for a year or so. Most of the 
school conversation was in the Spanish language, and 
what was learned didn't amount to much, but it was a 
start and about the only way a school here could start. 
However, at the end of a year Bacon persuaded the 
padre that teaching school was beneath the dignity of 
a Catholic priest and fixed things so the priest was 
authorized to hire a nice young lady to take his place. 
He got one and she taught about three months, when 
we had a horse race here and some feller came along 
and made love to her. The result was she ran away 
with him, and gad! weVe never seen her since. 

"The school was Bacon's hobby, and he got a 
building put up and afterward painted it himself — spent 
three weeks at the job. He laid out the grounds around 
with the notion of having a sort of park, and he urged 
that there should be put on the post at each corner of 
the fence a big globe having the entire world mapped on 
it. Then, inside, on an arch over the teacher's alcove 
he wanted a motto painted — ^ The poorest child may tread 
the classic halls of yore.' But there were two other 
trustees, and we wouldn't agree to these things. We 
didn't see much sense to 'the classic halls of yore,' 
and were afraid it would only get us laughed at. So, 



76 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

instead, we finally had an eagle and some stars painted 
on the arch. 

"Bacon knew how to read and write, but that was 
about the extent of his book learning. He was one of 
the argonauts of '49. He made money in mines and 
then he invested in cattle here. His home was an old 
adobe without a floor, but he was rich — oh, heavens! 
he had money galore. As soon as he got the school 
building done he put in a seventy-five dollar chandelier 
to light up so they could have dances. He paid for 
it — plunked up every nickel himself, and he furnished 
the oil, and he hired a dancing master to come from 
Los Angeles. They had a dance every Wednesday 
night. One day he says to a mother, *Why wasn't your 
girl there last time V 

" *She can't go no more,' the mother says. * She's 
just wearin' out her Sunday gaiters on the floor there, 
and I can't have it.' 

* Buy her a pair of gaiters, and I'll pay for 'em,' 
says he; and after that he had to buy gaiters for every 
girl in town, you bet-cher ! 

"In fact he got into the habit of buying anything 
the girls said they wanted for the dancing. But after 
a while they carried matters a little too far. I remember 
how he called on me and said, *One of my best dancers 
that lives down here on the lane has balked.' 

" 'What has she balked for.?' I asked. 



A Rustic Village 77 

*Well,' he replies, *she says she's got no corsets. 
Now Fve give them girls calico frocks and shoes and 
lots of things, hut I've got to drav^ the line somewhere, 
and I won't give 'em corsets.' 

"After that the weekly dance ran down. Then pretty 
soon the idea struck him he'd like to learn music. So 
he sent to Philadelphia for instruments to fit out a 
brass band, and he got the finest that money could buy. 
He distributed them among a lot of old pickles of his 
caliber, but I told him he'd forgot one thing — * Whoever 
heard of a brass band without a banjo V I said. 

"At once he telegraphed to have a banjo sent re- 
gardless of expense. Those old stiflFs he picked out for 
members of the band knew no more about music than 
a dog does about his grandfather; but they went to 
practising in a room here in the town and kept at it 
till the neighbors fired 'em out. Then they made their 
headquarters off a couple of miles on a sheep ranch 
where the coyotes were in the habit of gathering to 
serenade the ranch dwellers. They petered out after 
a while. The only fellow among them who pretended 
to do real well was the man with the bass drum. *Oh, 
yes,' he'd say, ^I'm gettin' along first rate. All I have 
to do is to draw off once in a while and give her a devil 
of a whack!' 

" Bacon was an old resident when I came, and he's 
been long dead. It was his habit every time he wanted 



78 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

to go away anywhere to buy two or three white shirts. 
When he'd worn 'em he'd chuck 'em in a closet and 
never bother with 'em again. After his death, when 
things was bein' settled up, we come across all that 
big heap of white shirts, and we threw 'em outside. 
The result was that every Mexican in the place wore a 
white shirt for the next few months." 

Note. — Capistrano is not a tourist resort, and its hotel accom- 
modations are poor; yet this lack is not without certain picturesque 
compensations. The village is one of the quaintest, its setting 
among the hills is charming, and it has the most imposing and 
beautiful Mission ruin in California. No traveller who goes to San 
Diego can afford to miss visiting the place, if only to stop off from 
one train and go on by the next. The outlying sections of the village 
where the Indians and poorer inhabitants dwell should not be 
neglected; and it would be well to visit the wild, abrupt coast. This 
is close at hand and has an added interest because of the adven- 
turous incidents which Dana in his "Two Years Before the Mast" 
describes as occurring in his experiences there. 

About 30 miles south of Capistrano, and 4 miles from the railway 
station of Oceanside, is the San Luis Rey Mission, which, after being 
in ruins for nearly a century, is again occupied by monks. 

There is an automobile route the entire distance from Los Angeles 
to San Diego, 136 miles, over roads that as a rule are good, but have 
some bad sandy stretches. 



IV 



SPRING IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 

ONE of my longest stops was at a private house 
well out in a suburban district of Los Angeles. 
From the window of my room I looked forth 
on a world luxuriantly green and brightened with 
blossoms in marvelous profusion. To add to the 
pleasure of all this, birds were plentiful, and, in partic- 
ular, there was a mocking-bird that had a habit of 
perching not far away and piping and trilling with rare 
ardor and eloquence. Several palms, a magnolia and 
some camphor trees grew in front of the house, and 
behind it were orange, fig, peach and other fruit trees. 
The entire region was much like a park, so carefully 
were the orchards kept, and so abounding were the 
cultivated flowers and shrubs. The surroundings of 
the finer dwellings were little short of perfection, and 
there was never any rawness due to waiting for nature 
to give them a proper setting, even about the newer 
homes. Things grow so quickly and respond so readily 
to man's training that a home almost at once nestles in 

79 



8o Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

flowers and vines and foHage that give it repose and 
charm. 

The story goes that the cHmate is so favoring you 
can plant toothpicks one day, and the next morning 
find them grown into tall trees that can be cut and sold 
for telegraph poles. In sober fact, the nearest approach 
to this is the growth made by the blue gum, a species of 
eucalyptus. Aside from fruit trees, no trees in Southern 
California are so conspicuous and abundant. A blue 
gum will send up a shoot twenty feet tall in a twelve- 
month; and in Australia, its home land, it attains a 
mature height of three hundred feet. The Californians 
usually cut their blue gums down every few years, and 
sprouts are allowed to start from the stump. "Our 
trees here don't know when they are dead," I was 
informed; "for no matter how little is left when the 
blue gums are chopped off they will at once take a 
new start as vigorous as ever. Why, a small patch of 
blue gums will keep a family in wood." 

Throughout California, no matter where one wanders, 
mountains are always in sight glorifying every landscape. 
Where I then was I could see a series of heights close 
at hand, lofty and rugged. During the cooler months 
the clouds love to linger about their summits and they 
often whiten over with snow; but no snow falls in the 
vale, though there are sometimes touches of frost. 
Things continue green and blossoms are profuse 



Spring in Southern California 8i 

throughout the winter, and there is a gradual increase 
of color and fresh growth until high tide is reached in 
April. Then water is no longer so abundant, and 
presently the flowers go to seed and the grass withers, 
and except where there is irrigation the face of the 
earth is sere and sober. Thus it remains till late autumn 
when the reviving showers awaken the dull fields and 
roadsides and pastures to life. 

The summer heat is at times excessive; yet it is a 
dry heat that does not carry with it a sweltering dis- 
comfort. What is far worse are the dust storms. In 
some sections these are frequent, and they are experi- 
enced occasionally even in Los Angeles. The dust fills 
the air like a fog and penetrates the houses and covers 
everything. Moreover, it irritates the throat and makes 
one constantly thirsty. Out on the desert, the wind, 
besides raising the dust, whirls the sand through the air, 
and sand-drifts gather in the lee of all obstructions. 
One man told me about an experience of his in a desert 
sand-storm in a top buggy. "The dusty wind had been 
blowing all day and night,'' said he, "and then let up. 
I'd been waiting for that and I started, but it had only quit 
to get a fresh hold and it soon blowed like the mischief 
again. The sand cut my face and the alkali in it made 
the tears run. Pretty soon my buggy blew over; but 
I got it right side up again and went on. A little farther 
along it capsized once more? and this time the top blew 



82 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

off and went bounding away out of sight. The storm 
was so bhnding I couldn't see a thing ten feet distant, 
and I'd been troubled a good deal to keep in the road 
because the wind was so fierce it would pull on the reins 
and get the horse out of the beaten track. So in making 
a new start I just tied the reins to the harness. Then 
I got into my wrecked buggy and let the horse find its 
own way home." 

Evidently the California summer is not in some 
respects all it might be, and the winter also has its 
failings, though of a different sort. In a Chicago rail- 
way station, on my way from the East, I overheard an 
Ohio woman who was returning from a visit to the 
Pacific Coast discoursing on its weather to a chance 
acquaintance. Her voice was hoarse with a severe cold. 
"I've never seen worse fog anywhere," said she; "and 
the tourists were all kicking about it. I wasn't com- 
fortably warm half the time, and I had to wear jis as 
heavy furs as at home. The houses ain't fixed to heat. 
They don't have stoves except in their kitchens. So 
you can only sit around and shiver. Even in summer 
the nights are chilly, no matter how hot the day has 
been. You have to be careful not to let in too much 
of that night air or you'll ketch your death of cold. I've 
never minded the winter in Ohio half as much as I did 
this winter out there. Then, too, I've always been 
used to livin' at home, and though the grub was goo4 



84 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

refused. The rainmaker, however, had his revenge by 
drenching the country at frequent intervals, and in 
some sections there were disastrous floods. He declared 
he would not desist until he was paid. Thus urged, his 
employers finally turned over the money, and the 
torrential rains more or less promptly ceased. 

Probably the most delightful excursion that can be 
made from Los Angeles is to the island of Santa Cata- 
lina, twenty-five miles off the coast. When first dis- 
covered the island was thickly populated by savages, and 
later it was frequented by pirates who preyed on the rich 
galleons in the Philippine trade. Now it is a pleasure 
resort that attracts multitudes of visitors, and its single 
village is a crowded settlement of hotels and shops and 
numerous little cottages huddled in a narrow valley 
basin. Thence you look forth on a crescent beach 
with wave-torn bluffs on either side reaching out into 
the sea. In all its length of twenty miles and its width 
of from two to nine, the island is a chaos of steep hills and 
mountains, furrowed with deep canyons and having 
many rugged precipices. The loftiest height is Black 
Jack which rises twenty-five hundred ,feet above the 
sea level. Most of the slopes are grassed over, and 
thousands of sheep find pasturage on them. You see 
the paths of the grazing flocks everywhere winding 
along the inclines, and often see the sheep themselves 
or hear their bleating. Off in the middle of the island 





' ',• ! !»1 



.,;\^\'i^ 







^ 






Spring in Southern California 85 

is a farmhouse where the caretakers of the flocks Hve, 
but otherwise human Hfe is confined to the neighborhood 
of the village of the pleasure-seekers. 

No matter whither I wandered I found a constant 
succession of glens and ridges clothed with scattered 
bushes and thorny clumps of cacti, and one can judge 
of the country inland by the fact that two young men 
who had lived in Santa Catalina for years recently 
lost themselves while coming from the west shore eight 
miles distant. A fog bewildered them, and one gave 
up with heart trouble or whiskey, and the other went 
on alone. Night came, and the wanderer stumbled 
about in the darkness all to no purpose. It was after- 
noon of the next day when he reached the village. 
Then search parties started to find his companion, but 
he was not where he had been left, and it was two days 
.later that they came across him in a remote part of the 
sland trying to find his way back to civilization. 

The showers that every now and then trailed over the 
uplands and down into the vales were full of vague 
mystery. There was mystery too in the gray old ocean 
always pounding along the shore, and in the drift of 
sunlight and shadow across its sober expanse. I had 
one experience that seemed to argue that this poetic 
quality as evinced by nature had a marked influence 
on the island dwellers and made them poetic also. 
The first night at my hotel I was awakened early in the 



86 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

morning by voices under my room. Evidently the floor 
was thin and I was over the dining room. A waiter 
was giving his comrades some advice and it was in 
rhyme, as follows: 

"Mary Ann was very good; 
She always did the best she could. 
Now children be like Mary Ann, 
And do the very best you can." 

A mile or two back from the village up a canyon 
lived an old hermit who had a chicken ranch. Any 
farm or country home with land attached, even if there 
is no more than a garden patch, is a "ranch'' in Cali- 
fornia. I called on the hermit one day. His house was 
of the shanty order standing in the midst of a plot of 
ground which he had palisaded with a lath fence against 
his marauding fowls. Besides chickens he had hundreds 
of pigeons and a few ducks and turkeys. For closer 
companionship he kept a couple of handsome collies, 
and when the sheep from the hills came down around 
his place, the dogs drove them back. 

"IVe been on Santa Catalina twenty years," said he. 
"It was just beginnin' to be a resort when I got here. 
There was one small hotel and a few boarding houses, 
and often more people would come than they could 
accommodate. Then a good many would have to 
sleep on the beach. Our summer weather is all right 
so they didn't suffer from damp or cold; but they did 




Comrades 



Spring in Southern California 87 

sometimes get into trouble with the sand fleas. We 
got fleas here pretty near as big as a grain of wheat, 
you bet!" 

The hermit had a number of flourishing fig and peach 
trees, and was starting some grapevines. I noticed 
several rank-growing plants I thought looked like 
tobacco. "That's what they are," said he. "One day 
an Irishman from Los Angeles called on me and he 
saw a chicken pickin* at itself, and he caught it and 
looked to see what was the matter. He found some 
mites, and he says, *What little tej'ous things are these V 

"I told him, and said I could get rid of them if I had 
some tobacco leaves. Well, the next time he come he 
brought a packet of tobacco seed, and he said, *You 
raise some tobacco and you use it on your chickens. 
If you don't Til kill you.' 

"It grows very good here. If you have water you 
can grow most anything in this soil except greenbacks. 
Would you like to see our island foxes ^ They're a 
sort you don't find on the mainland. I caught one last 
night in that box over there. I've beared him a-howlin' 
around for a week, and he got three chickens o' mine. 
These foxes make nice pets and I s'pose I've caught as 
many as four hundred and sold them at a dollar apiece." 

We went to the box, and he tilted it up so that I could 
see the pretty creature within — evidently a fox, but only 
half the mainland size. I believe the island contains 



88 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

certain other creatures with a peculiar individuahty, 
but it is especially famous for the fish in the surrounding 
sea. Here is found the leaping tuna, the most active 
game fish in the world. It is caught with a rod and line, 
but the line must be many hundreds of feet long, and 
the fish will tow the boat at racehorse speed from one 
to twenty miles before it is captured. In weight the 
tuna sometimes exceeds two hundred pounds. 

Nothing afforded me quite so much pleasure while I 
was at the island as a trip in one of the glass-bottomed 
boats. The boat could have carried a score, but two 
young men in addition to myself were the only passen- 
gers this time. There was a continuous cushioned 
seat at the sides and stern, and the oarsman sat in the 
prow. We had an awning overhead, and in the bottom 
of the boat were three heavy plates of glass about 
eighteen inches by three feet, boxed in at the sides. 
The harbor water was somewhat roiled, but as soon 
as we got to the cliffs jutting seaward we looked down 
into fairyland. Even when the depth was fully fifty 
feet there was scarcely any obscurity, and the sunbeams 
flickered down almost as through the air onto the gray 
rocks and the wafting, many-hued sea-plants and 
the numerous finny inhabitants. How calm every- 
thing down there seemed! and with what lazy pleasure 
the fish moved about in their wonder-world! They 
were marvelously colored — red and blue, silver and 



Spring in Southern California 89 

brown, striped and spotted; and some were pallid 
little sardines just hatched, and others would weigh 
four or five pounds. 

My fellow voyagers almost exhausted themselves in 
their expressions of delight. "Well, sir," one would 
cry, "this is the finest sight I've ever seen in my life." 

Then the other would break in with, "Look at this 
gold fish! Ain't he a pippin! and Tom, here's a jelly 
fish right under the glass. Gee! ain't that pretty .?" 

"Dick, get onto this!" exclaims Tom. "Do you see 
the fish with spots on its back like lamps .?" 

"That's the electric fish," explained the oarsman, 
"and in the dark those spots light up the water. Now 
we are going over a lot of seaweed — ribbons and lace and 
such. It's the wet drygoods of the ocean, and there's 
enough right in sight to stock a millinery store." 

"I s'pose you can catch fish here at the island any 
old place," remarked Tom. "My! it looks so nice 
down in there it would just suit me to camp under 
water right here for a while." 

"Those gold fish take my eye," declared Dick. 
"I would certainly like to reach down and grab a 
couple." 

"See that seaweed with the violet-colored tips," said 
Tom. "I tell you that's pretty." 

"That was nice all right," agreed Dick; "but look 



90 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

at this big purple shell lying on the bottom. I wish I 
had it." 

Just then a little rowboat approached, in which were 
two fellows in bathing suits, and our oarsman spoke to 
Dick and said, "If you want that shell one of those 
chaps will go down and get it for a quarter.'' 

So the other boat was hailed and as soon as the diver 
had leaned over into our craft to take a look through 
the glass and locate the shell, down he went, and we 
could see him swimming like a frog straight for it. When 
he came up he gave a rap on the glass beneath us, and 
then he presented the shell, climbed into his boat and 
put an old coat about his shoulders. "There's a 
number of such divers here," said our rower as we 
moved away, "and they make big money — five, ten 
and twenty dollars a day; but they don't live long. If 
they ketch a cold it goes right to their lungs." 

From Santa Catalina I returned to the mainland and 
went far back from the coast to a small isolated village. 
I arrived one warm noontide. A cow was wandering 
about the wide unshadowed main street, a few teams 
were hitched to wayside posts before the half dozen 
stores and saloons, and a rooster was scratching over 
a gutter rubbish heap. At one end of the street was a 
patch of grass and a group of trees, and here a pros- 
pector's outfit had stopped. The outfit consisted of a 
canvas-topped wagon loaded with supplies and drawn 



Spring in Southern California 91 

by four mules which were eating oats from their nose 
bags. On either side of the vehicle was a water barrel, 
and on behind a sheet-iron stove and a bale of hay. 
The proprietors were three men enroute for Death 
Valley, and they were prepared to spend a year search- 
ing for wealth in that desert region. 

On the rear borders of the hamlet stood a tiny church 
with a barbed-wire fence around it. A preacher came 
from somewhere and held service every other Sunday. 
I was told that only two men in the place were church- 
goers and that the minister considered it was a big day 
if he had an audience of ten. Beyond the church were 
park-like pastures with frequent great oaks just putting 
forth their new foliage. But as a whole the surround- 
ings were either level plains growing in their better 
parts to wheat and barley, or were low parched hills 
thinly covered with sagebrush and mesquite. 

The village was on the Newhall Ranch, which in- 
cludes nearly fifty thousand acres. When "old man 
Newhall" was alive all the suitable land was in wheat, 
and at the time of harvest he often shipped several 
trainloads in a day, while now it is something notable 
to fill half a dozen cars in that time. The village was 
a busy place then, for not only were two or three score 
men employed on the ranch, but twice as many more 
were working some neighboring oil wells, now aban- 
doned. A lanky long-haired youth who had charge of 



92 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

one of the drink resorts told me the history of the place 
while he sat on a battered and initial-carved settee in 
front of his saloon and contemplatively smoked a cigaret. 

"Dad come here twenty odd years ago," he said, 
" and he's seen this town drop four times and the business 
go dead. Well, things are not so bad just now as they 
might be. We get the trade from the ranches for ten to 
thirty miles around, and they've been makin' some- 
thin' the last few years and have money to spend. One 
while we lived in Los Angeles. That's quite a burg 
and gettin' bigger all the time. I used to could say 
nobody could lose me in Los Angeles, but I don't hardly 
know where I'm at in some parts now." 

When I left the village to resume my journeyings it 
so happened that I was stranded for several hours at 
a railway junction, a few miles distant, where I had to 
stay till midnight before I could get a train. One 
attraction of the waiting-room was a gambling-machine. 
You put a nickel in a slot, turned a crank and something 
went buzz inside, and possibly a sum varying from ten 
cents to two dollars dropped out down below. I saw a 
number of fellows try it, and two of them used up a 
quarter each in their efforts, but the machine simply 
kept what they dropped in and gave back no prizes. 
The profits of the machine, according to the man in 
charge of the station lunch counter, were about a dollar 
a day. He said the thing was against the law and 



Spring In Southern California 93 

would not be allowed in the cities, but in small places 
the law was not enforced. 

The lunch man and a friend had a long discussion 
about the merits of various systems of gambling — cards, 
craps, roulette and faro bank, and attempted to decide 
which was "the fairest game in the bunch." "Fve 
tried them all," said the friend. "Yes, I've monkeyed 
around the gambling tables a good deal. I am natu- 
rally lucky, too, and when I win, I win right quick." 

Nevertheless he was at present so hard up he was 
planning to beat his way on a frieght to some land of 
promise farther on. He went out, and the lunch man 
turned to me and said, "There ain't much use of 
playin' against a professional gambler. He ain't 
settin' there for his health, and he's bound to win 
oftener'n you are. But a feller knockin' about always 
sees ways to make a lot of money if he only had a little 
pile. It takes too long and requires too much effort to 
earn and save it. So he tries gambling; and yet if 
he has luck he always wants more money than he has 
won, and he won't stop until he loses it all. 

"Some of the worst gambling places are over in 
Arizona. I went into one town there with fifty bucks 
(dollars) in my pocket and wearin' a twenty-eight 
dollar suit and a new overcoat and shoes, and with a 
four-dollar grip in my hand. But in three weeks I 
come away a tramp. Now I've made up my mind to 



94 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

do different," said he as he prepared a cup of coffee 
for himself. "I ain't touched my booze for a month, 
and if I can save seventy-five dollars Fm goin' to start 
for New England where I come from. I can have 
more fun with five dollars in Boston than I can with a 
hundred dollars in these cities out here." 

Most likely he would fail in his intention. The Far 
West is full of human driftwood. Men who have any 
capacity and industry easily get profitable jobs, but a 
considerable proportion of such men are constantly 
roving to new territory, and money doesn't stick to them. 

My midnight train carried me to the remarkably 
fertile country that extends for nearly a hundred miles 
east of Los Angeles. There you find an endless succes- 
sion of orange, lemon, apricot, peach and other fruit 
orchards. Back a little from the route I took through 
this wonderland, the mountains frowned in purple 
gloom from beneath a capping of foggy clouds, and 
wherever a canyon opened from the heights it had shot 
out over the levels a wide waste of sand and stones that 
was half overgrown with brush. Such land was fur- 
rowed with water-courses that were perfectly dry except 
just after storms. However, dry water-courses are not 
confined in California to small streams. There is a 
saying that the rivers are "bottom upward." That is, 
the channel is usually a waste of sand, but if you dig 
down deep enough you are pretty sure to find a seepage 



Spring in Southern California 95 

of water. After a storm the dry channels are suddenly 
filled with rushing torrents that transform the lowlands 
to shallow ponds, and marshes of mire. 

In the region where I then was oranges grow to per- 
fection, but they are raised with scarcely less success 
in the upper Sacramento valley over five hundred miles 
to the north. Heat and cold on the coast are a matter 
of altitude, not latitude, and the wildflowers are a-bloom 
among the foothills and the valleys in midwinter 
throughout the entire length of the state. What wonder 
that California is the great orange center of the world ! 

With proper care the trees grow very rapidly. They 
are vigorous and long-lived. For a hundred years they 
will continue to bear, and an instance is on record in 
Italy of an orange tree that survived to the age of four 
centuries. Perhaps no other tree blossoms more regu- 
larly and generously, and though sometimes a cold 
wave does serious local harm, a general failure of the 
crop is unknown. The trees require little or no pruning 
back, but the branches have to be thinned out some- 
what. To combat the scale pests a good many owners 
resort to spraying, but the most effective way is to 
fumigate. The leading varieties of trees only grow 
about ten feet high and are very compact with branches 
trailing on the ground. Even the larger species seldom 
attain over fifteen feet, so that a tent can be put over a 
tree and the fumigating done very thoroughly. Tents 



96 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

enough are used to cover a row, and when that row has 
been treated they are shifted to the next. It is night 
work, for the heat of the day and the fumes combined 
would injure the foHage. 

In the early spring one finds much of the land among 
the orange groves hidden by rank weeds, and by peas 
purposely grown during the winter and later ploughed 
under to serve as a fertilizer and to give the soil humus. 
After the ploughing the land is kept clean, and it is culti- 
vated many times in the months following. The bare 
brown earth is not a pleasing setting for the evergreen, 
glossy-foliaged trees, and their appeal to the eye is also 
hurt by the round, stout solidity and uniformity of shape 
of the trees themselves. 

Picking begins in time to ship for Thanksgiving use, 
but the early fruit is poor. It is not ripe, and in order 
to get a good outer color some of it has to be treated 
to a few days' sweat. This turns a green skin to the 
proper tint, though the inside may be as sour as a lemon. 
The picking continues until May, and in the height of 
the season you can buy excellent windfalls from peddlers 
on the town streets at "ten cents a bucket," and the 
bucket holds about eight quarts. 

A well-grown orchard, conveniently located, is 
commonly priced at fifteen hundred to two thousand 
dollars an acre, though at such figures the native 
Californians, if they give you a confidential opinion. 



Spring in Southern California 97 

say they don't see how any money can be made. It is 
better to sacrifice something on location, for the in- 
vestment will be decidedly less. There is great ad- 
vantage to a prospective purchaser in working in the 
country a year or two in order to get acquainted with 
the climate, the soil and crops and methods of marketing. 
The tenderfoot usually pays high for the place he buys, 
and often he "comes with a nice little pile and goes 
back with nothing." Many natives make a business of 
staying on a place for a while, improving it and then 
selling at a fancy valuation. That done, they buy some 
other ranch, which can be had cheap, and repeat the 
process. 

The manipulations that one hears of in connection 
with the sale of land in the coast country make a very 
curious story. The real estate agents are persons of an 
optimistic turn of mind, with a marked ability to tell 
fairy tales. I heard of one man who was dissatisfied 
with the place he owned, and he put it in the hands 
of a firm of agents, to sell while he looked up another 
home to his liking. Shortly afterward he saw a place 
advertised by these agents that he felt from the description 
was exactly the thing he wanted. He went to them, 
and lo! it was the very one he was trying to sell. 

The agents are all eager to get hold of prospective 
purchasers, and some of the loiterers at the station are 
likely to be acting in their interest. That old Kansas 



98 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

farmer you see chewing tobacco and sitting around in 
the waiting room is wintering in the vicinity, and he is 
making a Httle money by keeping on the lookout for 
new arrivals, getting acquainted with them, and if they 
want to buy land he steers them to some real estate 
firm with which he has an understanding. 

Everybody trades in land "on the side," even cheap 
clerks and servant girls. They can get lots for one 
dollar down and a dollar a week. But most of the 
small speculators pay in cash one-fourth of the price and 
agree to pay the other quarters at six month intervals. 
They really never intend to make the second payment, 
but expect the land to advance in value so they can sell 
out at a good profit before the six months expire. In 
short, they seldom buy because they want the property 
for themselves, but simply to await some bigger " sucker" 
who will take it off their hands at an advance. With 
prices going up the investors generally make money. 
On the other hand a drop in values finds a vast number 
of obligations that cannot be taken care of. The 
speculators are forced to sell for what they can get, 
which makes prices tumble still worse and there is a 
general crash. The preceding inflation has often been 
so great that it is difficult to estimate what a person has 
really dropped. "I have lost fifty thousand dollars," 
said one investor, " and the worst of it is that five hun- 
dred dollars of the sum was good money." 




Schoolgirls 



Spring in Southern California 99 

One real estate agent who talked to me with unusual 
frankness was a man who had just retired from the 
business after a ten months' experience. He had 
come from South Dakota and had made his home in a 
growing coast city often thousand inhabitants. " I have 
been successful," said he, "but my Godfrey! I didn't 
feel right. You can't tell the whole truth and make 
any sales. Southern California is a good place to spend 
money and a poor place to make it. For some people 
it's healthy, but for me the winters are too damp and 
chilly; and yet the natives say you don't need no fire. 
The fact is, fuel is expensive and most people can't 
afford it. There's many a family makes one cord of 
wood last a whole year; but I burned just as much as 
we did at home in the East. 

"A considerable number of widows lived in the town 
where I was. When a woman had a little money left 
at her husband's death she'd buy or build a nice-looking 
house, but if you examined it you'd find it was put up 
very slight and cheap. Outside there'd be clapboards 
nailed right to the studding, and inside cheese cloth over 
lath, and wall paper pasted on the cloth. The place was 
a summer resort, and for three or four months the lone 
woman with a house would rent her dwelling and live 
herself in a tent or shed behind it. The money she 
received had to support her the year through. So her 
food was mostly bread and a little fish and tea, with 



100 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

now and then five cents worth of warm soup bought at a 
restaurant. All the time she'd put on the appearance 
of being very well off, though in reality she was poorer 
than Job's turkey. 

" People in the East think that the climate in California 
is so favorable that they can pay any price for a ranch 
and make money on whatever they choose to go into, 
and that there'll be no need of their doing much only 
to let things grow. The real estate agents encourage 
that notion. They're the gol-darndest lot I ever saw. 
They can't talk reasonable, and they never quit their 
everlasting blowing. You'd think they were fairly 
crazy about this country. It will almost make a man 
who knows the situation vomit, the way they talk. 
Murderation, they've got dodges to beat any Eastern 
man that ever lived. They always like to take a possible 
customer to ride to show him around. Crowd him into 
your rig some way, and then your sale is half made. 
Otherwise, a rival will take the drive with him and your 
chance in that quarter is gone. It isn't the habit to 
exhibit any anxiety to sell. You point out this and that 
piece of property and talk about what it is suited for 
and what its future value will probably be, and you're 
pretty sure to get your man interested. 

"Everybody deals in real estate, ministers and all. 
Some of the ministers get so tangled up they have to 
leave their pulpits. You have no idee of the state of 




.o 



o 



• 



Spring in Southern California loi 

things. I know one Methodist minister who has done 
particularly well. When he notices a new man in his 
congregation he of course takes pains to shake hands 
and welcome him, and then he asks if he is going to 
settle. If the man says, *Yes,' the minister mentions 
that while he is not in the real estate business he knows 
of various pieces of property for sale and would be glad 
to render any assistance he could. You see, the mem- 
bers of his flock place whatever piece of land they want 
to dispose of in his hands, and he lists it and sells it on 
a per cent the same as any other agent. But he is 
supposed by the purchaser to be disinterested, and he 
talks with the stranger's family, holds prayers with them 
and keeps them right under his thumb. You can't 
never persuade the preacher's man away. He's got a 
dead sure thing, and by and by the sale is made and the 
rest of us say, *The parson has landed another man all 
right.' 

"Then there's a kind of agent who has no office or 
no nothing. He keeps watch of the streets. When he 
sees strangers standing around in the sun trying to get 
warm he happens up to 'em and says, 'Kind o' cold 
this morning.' 

"That leads to talk, and if he finds they have some 
notion of buying property he says, * Well, I ain't got no 
property to sell, myself, but there's a friend of mine 
has just about what you're lookin' for, and I'd be glad 
to take you around to see it.' 



102 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

" Darned if he ain*t about the best man in town, next 
to the preacher, to make sales! The strangers perhaps 
wouldn't go in the door of a real estate office, but they 
buy of him because they think he has no money interest 
in making the sale. They may even brag afterward 
to the real estate men who have offices, and say, *We 
bought through him because we didn't want to pay you 
fellers a commission.' 

"Another way to force sales is to employ what they 
call a * striker.' Suppose you are trying to sell a ranch. 
The striker comes in while you are talking with your 
customer, and you greet him as a person who owns a 
ranch close by the one you have for sale. You ask 
him what he'll take for his place, but he won't sell. 
It's too profitable a property, while all the time the 
striker hasn't any place at all. One agent in the city I 
lived in was working to dispose of a tract of land to 
two ladies, and he represented it would have a very 
ready sale cut up for house lots, though it was miles 
beyond where the city was at all built up, and the city 
wouldn't grow to it in five hundred years. To speak the 
exact truth it wa'n't worth a cuss. But he tells 'em 
there's three or four parties after it who are liable to 
take it any time, and they'd better not delay. So they 
got the refusal of it for a few days. Before the time 
was up a striker called on 'em. He'd never shaved and 
had whiskers all around his face a foot lone. You 



Spring in Southern California 103 

might say he was from Missouri. He was an old 
innocent-lookin* feller and made out he was deacon of 
some church, and he says, * I understand youVe bought 
that property, and I wanted to know about getting a 
part of it. Fm willing to give so much for half of it;' 
and he named a price bigger'n they were goin' to pay 
for the whole. 

"They were all in a flutter, and they said that 
arrangements were not quite complete, but the property 
was about to be put on the market by them and he 
should have first chance. Then they made haste to 
buy and were the most tickled women in the world, but 
the man with the whiskers never came again. That 
old freak would land every victim he got hold of and 
take their last dollar. I was sorry for those women, 
but women do make the awfullest breaks in these land 
trades. They go into speculation head over heels. 

"One day a stranger called at my office and told me 
he'd been in town two weeks and invested five thousand 
dollars. The tales of the land agents had made him 
enthusiastic, and he said, *You people out here are 
slow. You stand around doing nothing and let us 
Eastern people make all the money.' 

"He was sure he was going to double on his invest- 
ment within a year, but he was soon ready to sell out 
at a heavy loss. There's no use talking — you pick up 
any property we had and it would pretty near burn 



104 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

your fingers. That's what it would. But new people 
were coming in on every train looking fiDr property to 
invest in; and the papers were praising it up all the 
time, so that hearing of prices constantly on the rise 
they'd get in a hurry to buy. But a month was a long 
time for a place to be out of the market. By then a 
man was pretty sure to be sick of his bargain. When I 
made a sale I just checked it with a pencil. I didn't 
cross off the item; for I'd soon have had my book 
scratched up and spoiled. In a few weeks the property 
was bound to go on sale again, and then I'd simply 
erase the check. You could readily tell when a piece of 
property had recently changed hands, for there would 
be some little improvements made on it. That's the 
only time a man ever had any heart for laying out 
money and effort on his place. 

"The other agents in town got onto me right straddle 
of my neck for not booming the region more; but I 
couldn't do it. If a man came to me and I found he 
had a family of children I would urge him to keep his 
money and go back where he came from. If he was a 
single man, or there was only him and his wife, I 
showed what there was to be had and let him use his 
own judgment. But, by gosh, I didn't feel right even 
about that, and now I'm quit of the business." 

Note. — Los Angeles, the metropolis of Southern California, is 
naturally the first stopping-place of every tourist who arrives by the 



Spring in Southern California 105 

Santa Fe or Southern Pacific. In 1880 this "Town of the Queen 
of the Angels," as the Spaniards called it, had only eleven thousand 
inhabitants, but twenty-five years later there were nearly two hundred 
thousand. It is a modern big city, yet with environs that are pecul- 
iarly charming. Here is some of the finest fruit country on the west 
coast and you find innumerable groves of both orange and lemon 
trees, and the homes nestle among blossoms and green foliage even 
in midwinter. Then there is a background of rugged mountain 
heights, and not far away in the other direction is the sea and the 
enchanting island of Santa Catalina, reputed to be the greatest fishing- 
place on earth. Every facility is provided for seeing the towns and 
villages of the Los Angeles region and for climbing the mountains of 
going to the wild isle off the coast. 

The most famous suburb of Los Angeles is Pasadena. This, too, 
is a city, but for the most part is a place of homes, each with a setting 
of velvety turf and full-foliaged trees and flowers. It is a playground 
of wealth, the winter dwelling-place of a multitude of Eastern 
people and contains some of the finest residence thoroughfares on this 
continent. Various other flourishing towns and much of the best 
cultivated portion of this "Land of the Afternoon" can be glimpsed 
by taking a day's trip on a railway that makes a long loop back into 
the interior. Of the towns on this loop that would best repay a 
special visit I think Riverside and Redlands should have the 
preference. 

The country is least attractive in the parched months of the late 
summer and early autumn, and is seen at its best in April and May. 
As compared with the temperature that most of the states east of the 
Rocky Mountains experience in the colder months, the West Coast 
climate will be found very genial, but warm clothing, light overcoats, 
shawls, or convenient wraps which may be used or discarded according 
to one's needs, are an essential part of the traveller's outfit. The 
evenings and nights are sure to be cool, and chilling rains are a fre- 
quent feature of the winter. 



SANTA BARBARA AND ITS HISTORIC MISSION 

THERE had been rain early in the day, but as 
my train went northward from Los Angeles 
the clouds rolled away, and when we came to 
the seashore the sun was shining from the west in a 
broad dazzling path of light across the restless waves. 
Off in the distance were some islands nearly hidden in 
silvery haze. A series of fine big hills hugged the ocean, 
and we skirted their bases close to the beach till we 
reached Santa Barbara where the hills gave place to a 
wide valley and disclosed a noble range of mountains 
rising along the east. 

The lower portion of the town is a straggling and 
promiscuous set of buildings, and misses little of being 
squalid; but as you go farther back, homes of the 
suburban type become more and more numerous till 
you find nothing else but handsome cottages and villas 
hiding amid the semi-tropical luxuriance of blossoms 
and shrubbery. On a gentle hill at the end of the vale 
stands the Mission charming the beholder with its 

io6 




Garden work 



Santa Barbara and its Historic Mission 107 

simplicity, its size, its imposing situation and its storied 
age. It is a structure that seems to belong to another 
realm and another civilization, and the only local 
buildings at all akin to it are a few lowly adobe houses 
in the town center, just off the main business street — 
survivals of the old Spanish village. These are usually 
whitewashed, and they have broad, tile-floored veran- 
dahs with roses, morning-glories or other vines growing 
along the front. Neither the chill of winter, nor the 
heat of summer can very well penetrate their massive 
earthen walls. As one of the dwellers said to me, " It 
might be August, and the sun no matter how hot, you 
go in this house, it be cold, nice, good." 

He showed me a patch of grapevines trimmed back 
to the bare stubs, but the green new sprouts were 
already well started, and he said, "They will have on 
them fine grapes — good to eat, good to make wine, 
and the wine is more strong as whiskey. See how these 
vines is growing. I have all the time to cut them back. 
He grow fast, queek! You bet you! By gosh, give 
him a chance and he grow all over the place! That is 
cactus over there. Prickly pear, I call him. The fruit 
has many pins on it — what you call them ^ — thorns. 
But get them off and the skin off, and the inside is 
sweet, good." 

I asked him the name of a little flowering plant 
growing underfoot, but he only knew that it was a weed 



lo8 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

which was sometimes used for medicine. " It will keep 
you well better than the doctor," he continued. "If 
I be made sick of the stomach I boil it for a drink. 
Ah! the doctor can not tell what is the trouble inside 
of you. He get him your money. He don*t care 
whether you die." 

I went into one old adobe. It was pretty dismal and 
dark and bare, and the rafters and roof-boards over- 
head were black with soot. The two things that most 
impressed me were the presence of a piano, and a sign 
hung on the wall that had been painted by some genius 
of the family and which said, don't spick in the table. 
The idea of the motto was not to chatter while eating. 

In my wanderings about the old part of the town I 
came across an Irishman converting a wayside blue 
gum that he had felled, into firewood. The chopper 
was elderly, tattered and rusty, but in independent 
circumstances, nevertheless; for he pointed across the 
road and aflRrmed that he owned an entire block of 
land and the various cabins on it, property worth in 
his say-so fifteen or twenty thousand dollars. He men- 
tioned that he lived over there, and I asked him in which 
house. He responded that he didn't live in any house, 
but camped in a wagon which was hidden from view 
by some intervening buildings. 

"Have ye been up to the ould Mission r* he queried, 
settling himself comfortably on the blue gum log. 



Santa Barbara and its Historic Mission 109 

"It is an intheresting place to look about, and soom 
like to go to church there on Sundays. I wint wunst 
mesilf. A lady who thought a heap of me had invited 
me to go wid her, and she sat in the front seat. But 
I stayed near the door; and close by me was a lobby 
hole or box like a little room built ag'in the wall and 
I could hear a priest a-muttering in it. Yes, he was 
m there a-gobbling away Hke an ould turkey — joost as if 
the outside wasn't good enough for him and he moost go 
in there and gobble by himself; and I couldn't under- 
stand a word he said, for he didn't speak out plain 
and brave. 

"There was a lot o' prayin' to be did in the church 
service, and you had to be crossin' yoursilf and pokin' 
your heart most of the rime. But I wasn't coom for 
that. I was there to listen and look. I couldn't make 
mooch sinse out of what I heard, because a good deal 
was in Larin or soom other haythen language. Then 
there was a feller walkin' around swingin' a thing that 
smoked— a cincer, they call it, and he was shakin' it 
this way and that and payin' no sort of atrinrion to it; 
and I said to mesilf, 'That feller is no Catholic. He 
don't care what he's got there, v.^hether it's wather or 
a kag of beer or what it is.' 

"I want ye to notice one place at the Mission particu- 
lar. Turn off the road that goes up the hill joost beyond 
the main building and ye will see the ruins of three 



no Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

rooms. It's telled me that the ould monks walled up 
some bad people in there to stay for the rest of their 
lives. The backmost room was very small and half 
under the hill, and the opening into it was only a round 
hole that you had to crawl through on your face and 
hands. It seems like that was the place for thim that 
was very bad — the outlawed criminals. The others 
stayed in the bigger rooms where it was more plisant. 
" But whin Fremont coom here he throwed a cannon 
ball or two at thim rooms, and he let the prisoners 
loose. He knowed what was there. I niver had thought 
well of his outfit — coomin' here and raising thunder 
with the Spanish people, but whin I seen what he done 
in leaving those prisoners loose I felt different. A man 
in this town who was in Fremont's army tould me 
about it, but he has been dead now a matther of five 
or six years. Ah! the ould padres had been havin' 
their own \^ay till Fremont coom. They got all the 
Indians workin* for 'em and were bossin' thim and 
makin' thim do exactly as they pleased and tellin' thim 
if they didn't obey they'd be sint to hell sure. So the 
padres got so rich and proud they didn't hardly want 
to speak to anyone. Thim prison rooms make a strange- 
lookin' ruin even yit, and the firrust time I was past 
the hair fairly stood up on me head at the sight. I 
thought I would as soon have me cofl&n made and be 
put in the ground as be walled in there." 




Meditation 



Santa Barbara and its Historic Mission iii 

Really, the buildings of which he spoke had some- 
thing to do with the storage and filtering of the old 
water supply, and there never was any such grim prison 
as he described. The Mission itself, unlike most of 
the California Missions, is not a ruin, but is in excellent 
repair and still the dwelling of the gowned and sandaled 
monks, as it was a century ago. These monks are so 
different from ordinary folk in their garments and in 
the strangely decorative life they lead that it is fasci- 
nating to watch them engaged in their various duties. 
The furniture and all the belongings of the Mission 
are severely simple, but the great court back of the 
main building is full of flowers and trees, and its luxur- 
iance contrasts oddly with the severity of the interiors. 
Throngs of visitors are constantly coming and going. 
They, however, only have access to certain public 
portions of the premises, so that those portions where 
the friars eat and sleep and do their daily tasks in shops 
and garden and fields repose in almost unbroken calm. 

From the Mission I went far up a mountain roadway 
that for a long distance clung to a hillside well up above 
a noisy stream coursing along in the wooded hollow. 
The road was muddy and gullied. Heavy wagons 
were going up after stone, or returning loaded, and 
there were many equestrians — ladies, men and children. 
Santa Barbara is a famous place for horseback expe- 
ditions. Nearly everyone rides, even those who before 



112 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

they go there never have been on a horse, and all 
through the day you see the riders, singly, in couples 
and in squads, gallivanting through the town streets, 
and meet them on every road and trail for miles around. 
The road I was on was bordered by pastures that in 
places were grassy, but were largely covered with gray- 
green sagebrush mingled with thickets of chaparral 
misted over at that season with blue blossoms. In 
favored spots grew the cactus and clumps of great 
century plants. When there was open grazing land it 
was strewn with rocks, and this rocky ground seemed 
to favor the growth of scattered groves of live oaks. 
The oaks were wonderfully twisted and distorted, 
their bark was gray with lichen and they looked as 
ancient as the rock-strewn hills on which they stood. 

At one point I came on a herd of cattle feeding along 
the brushy roadside, and three boys were watching 
them. The watchers were playing with a pet cow that 
was lying down, and which seemed to take a sort of 
sleepy pleasure in their proceedings. The clothing of 
the lads was covered with dirt and hairs, for they 
tumbled about on the ground or leaned on the creature 
and rubbed it companionably. One boy was milking 
into his mouth. The oldest of the trio said, "My father 
gave me this cow when she was a little bit of a calf, and 
I take care of her. If he tries to milk her he gets 
kicked, but I can milk her anywhere. Last December 



Santa Barbara and its Historic Mission 113 

she pretty near died. There was no feed in the pastures, 
and the cattle was dying all over. We lost quite a few, 
and this cow got so weak she would tumble down. 
So we carried feed to her and she got stronger. We 
watch the cattle here all day, but at noontime take 
turns going home to dinner. When night comes we 
drive the cattle into the pasture." 

I went on until the foothills began to merge into the 
rough steeps of the mountains, and then I wandered 
back to the town. 

On my last afternoon in Santa Barbara I again had 
a talk with the Irishman-of-w^ealth who lived in a 
wagon. He was still laboring at the big blue gum, but 
desisted from his exertion to sit down and chat, as 
readily as he had before. He was especially eager to 
know what I thought of the Mission and its monks and 
their religion. Soon he was relating some of his personal 
opinions and experiences. 

"Fm not mooch stuck on religion mesilf," said he, 
"and a little church-going lasts me a long time. Wunst 
my fri'nds tould me I ought to go to confession. So I 
said I would, and at the church where they tuk me I 
wint into a little room, and there was two chairs and a 
priest, and he and me set down. Thin he began 
moombling along like a drunken man wid a pipe in 
his mouth. Well, I listened and listened; and as I 
(;:ould make no sinse at all out of his moombling, I said 



114 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

nothing; and at last he got up and says, 'Adieu, coom 
again;' and I says, *A11 right,' and wint out. 

"Last week a Salvationist preacher was along the 
road here, and he stopped to speak wid me as I was 
hackin' away at this tree. He wanted me to go to 
church. I tould him I wouldn't care if there was niver 
a church in the woruld. ' I don't believe in your Bible,' 
I says. 'There's good things in it, but there's the divil 
and everything else besides in it, and it tells lies the 
same as the rest of the people.' 

'Brother,' he says, 'ye moostn't think that way.' 
'Well,' I says, 'you take sooch a story as that about 
Noah — and how God raised the wather of the Pacific 
Ocean and turned it topsided like over Asia and 
drowned all the people — I can't bel'ave it. Would God 
be that cruel V 

"'He was not cruel,' the Salvationist said. 'There 
was an ark, and whin the flood came and the people 
was all a-swimming God tould thim to come into the 
ark, and they would not.' 

How could they all get in V I says. ' It wouldn't 
have held thim.' 

"'Eh-heh!' he kind o' stammered, 'God can do 
anything. He made the woruld.' 

" 'What did he make it out oiV I asked. 

" 'He made it out of doost,' says the Salvationist. 

"'And who made the doost .^' I says, 



Santa Barbara and its Historic Mission 115 

"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! I ketched him there, and he got 
mad at me. * You can get soom kids to believe thim 
things/ I says; *but it's no use to be arguin' to a sinsible, 
intilHgent man. I keep the straight thrack and I want 
no more of this nonsinsical talk.''' 

The chopper took his hat off and ran his fingers 
thoughtfully through his hair. Then he resumed his 
remarks by asking, "Did ye iver know there was gold 
in Ireland .? Well, whin I was a kid I lived about twinty 
miles from the city of Cork, and near me home was a 
nice creek — not like these streams in California, but 
clear and beautiful and running all the time; and wan 
day I see a bright stone in the wather — it might be 
about the size of a goose's egg, and I picked it up. 
I had niver seen anything like it — so yaller and heavy, 
and it took me eye. So I carried it home to me mother 
and she put it under the bed. 

"Me mother had been nurse in a gintleman's family, 
a family that was way up, and the gintleman's daughter 
would soomtimes coom and call on her. The young 
lady was there wan time all dhressed up so very fine, 
and me mother showed her the yaller stone from under 
the bed, and the young lady carried it away wid her. 

" I didn't know what the stone was thin, but since I 
been in this country and worked in the mines I know 
it was a lump of pure gold. I seen in that creek other 
stones like it, and going right across the creek was a 



Il6 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

vein of what I called white rocks, that now I would call 
honeycomb quartz — gold bearing. If I broke the rock 
the pieces would hang together wid the gold in it. 
Soomtimes I would pick up one o' the gold pebbles, 
and it seemed so heavy I would toss it up joost to feel 
it coom down chuck in the palm of me hand. If it fell 
on the ground it would make the doost fly, it was that 
heavy. Ah, there's plinty of rich ore in Ireland, and 
what's the matther they don't give the people per- 
mission for to mine it } I s'pose if I was to go back there 
and try to get that gold they'd put me in jail, eh .? 

"Well, now, I was by the creek another time where 
there was a deep hole wid a ruffle below it, and in this 
deep place I see soom throut. Wan was ahead and the 
others was following like a lot of dogs running after 
another, goin' along in rotation. The first throut had 
soomthing in its mouth — oh, so shining — joost like 
sunlight. Pretty soon the throut dropped it, and the 
next one picked it up and the rest kept on chasing until 
he dropped it and another ketched it, and away wid it. 
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! I kept watchin' and by and by I got 
hold o' the shining thing — and what was it but a 
di'mond. I didn't know thin, though, what it was, and 
I ran home and showed it to me mother and said, *Oh, 
look what a nice little rock I got!' 

But she let the gintleman's daughter take it, and the 
young lady put it in a ring. I worked at her house whin 




The artist 



Santa Barbara and its Historic Mission 117 

I got older, and she would show me the ring wid the 
diamond in it and make it flash the light over on the 
wall, and she would tell how she had the value of so 
mooch wealth on her finger. That's the way people 
have cheated me all me life — because I would niver 
grab for anything. 

" Perhaps not iveryone would have seen what I seen. 
Soom of us are odd from the balance of the people. 
I have tould you about the gold and the di'mond, but 
the most wonderful thing in me life is that I have seen 
the fairies. Me father seen 'em too, and he said his 
father did before him; and so I suppose have all the 
ginerations in our family from the commincement of 
the woruld right down. I remimber the first time I 
seen 'em I was a boy out in the pasture. I was all alone, 
and I seen forty or fifty little men goin' along, and they 
were no more than three feet high. They wore stove- 
pipe hats and bobtail coats and knee-breeches, and each 
had a big long pipe in his mouth, and they stood up so 
straight and plump and nice it was a pleasure to look 
at 'em. Ye see they was dhressed in the rael ould-time 
Irish costume. I have seen the Scotch costume and the 
other national costumes, and soom are good enough, 
and soom are crazy-like, but none are equal to the Irish. 
I tell you an Irishman in that ould dhress looked like a 
smart, intilligent, brave man. Ivery wan o' those fairy 
men carried a blackthorn stick. Ah, how mooch the 



Il8 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

ould Irish did think o' their blackthorns! How they 
did bile 'em in hot wather and rub thim wid ile, and 
hang thim up in the chimney to get seasoned and 
smoked, and they always carried thim to protict thim- 
silves when they wint to a fair. 

"Well, there was a bird in Ireland used to coom and 
sing to me — a little black bird like wan o' these pewees. 
Whin I took shipping for this counthry I felt very bad 
to be leavin' me little bird. I said, *0h, Vm so sorry! 
I'm afraid I shall lose me luck.' 

" But after we was about ten days out I looked back, 
and there I saw me little pewee coomin', and he flew 
like he was awful tired. Finally he caught up wid us 
and lit on the topmast, and there he stayed the rest of 
the day. The next morning he was down on the first 
yard, and the day after that he was on the bulwarks. 
I was on the promenade poop forward, and I spoke to 
him, and he coom and hopped about and e't soom of 
a piece of bread I had, and then he hollered, *Pe-wee- 
wee-wee-wee ! ' and flew back up in the riggin'. 

"After a while I wint down below, and whin I coom 
up again I couldn't see him at all any more. But he 
visits me lots o' times since I been in this counthry. 
It's the same bird, wid the same motions and song my 
little bird in Ireland had. I could tell him from any 
other bird. He cooms and gives me warnin' if soom- 
thin' is goin' to go bad; and maybe, now and then he 



Santa Barbara and its Historic Mission 119 

will appear as a cow. There was wunst I had a little 
bit of a log cabin down the coast a few miles, and there 
was a good stout fince around it, and barley a-growin' 
in the yard. Well, I was settin' in me cabin wan day 
whin a cow stuck her head in the door and laughed 
joost like a Christian. *How did you get inside my 
fince .^' I said. *It's destroyin' my barley, ye are.' 

"So I drove her out of the gate, and I was astonished 
she wint so quick and peaceable, and not ugly and 
conniptions like most cows. Thin I looked at the barley, 
but it was not hurt at all. Another day I found the cow 
rubbin' herself against the side of my little house, and I 
drove her off across the fields till she passed around 
soom bushes, and the next minute she coom in sight 
and a calf wid her. She passed behind soom more 
bushes, and as soon as she appeared again there was 
half a dozen more cows wid her. Ha-ha-ha-ha! I 
picked up a rock to throw at her, but she looked me 
such a look I did not throw. * That's the ould fairies,' 
I said, and I asked forgiveness. 

"The cow kept foolin' wid me for about a month. 
I wa'n't feelin' well, and I was gettin' worse. *Oh,' 
I thought, 'Vm goin' to die!' 

" I took a walk out wan day, and I seen that cow by 
the side of the road, and I stopped and had a good look 
at her. 'What a fine cow!' I says, *and how full your 
bag is wid milk! I niver noticed that before. I will 



120 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

bring a bucket and milk you and have soom bread and 
milk to eat.' 

"So I got the bucket and kneeled down to milk, but 
the cow began to hitch around and would not stand 
still, and I said, * If you don't quit that I'll hit you wid 
the bucket.' 

"She lifted up wan hind foot like she was goin' to 
kick, and she turned her head around and looked at 
me as if she was human and had sinse. I was scared 
and I started to escape into a near held. Well, now 
thin, as I was goin' over the fince I looked back and 
there was no cow to be seen. She'd gone out of sight 
while I was takin' three steps. 

"The next evening I was out again, and there was 
the cow in the road, and the milk was runnin' out of her 
bag and down the road in a regular stream to the gulch. 
I hurried and brought me bucket and caught about two 
inches in the bottom of it. Thin I carried it to the house 
and had soom bread and milk, and that milk was 
delicious, palatable, fine. It was the best I iver tasted. 
It made another man of me. I could feel the change 
at wunst. It braced me up and I was well. 

"I had soom milk left and I thought I would let it 
stay in the bucket and have it in the morning, but 
when morning came and I looked in the bucket I saw 
nothing but wather there. At noon I looked in again 
and the bucket was dry. Now, what do you call that ? 




At zvork in a home yard 



Santa Barbara and its Historic Mission 121 

It was the fairies all the same havin* fun wid me. I was 
sick and they cured me. They knowed it was no 
bother to do it. 

"The fairies had a hand too in my gettin' this block 
of land I own. They showed me the picture of it 
before I left Ireland, and the minute I set eyes on it I 
was certain it was what they intinded I should have. 
Thin, wan time here, the fairies tould me I could have 
great herds of cattle or sheep or pigs. *Whativer kind 
of animals ye want ye can have,' they said; and I 
chose the cattle, and no sooner did I say the word than 
up coom a band of cattle out of the ground — hoondreds 
av thim. * There they are,' the fairies said, *and in 
twinty years thim will be yours, and the ranch they're 
on, if ye want thim.' 

"Well, they were on a ranch where a lady named 
Hale lived, and ivery cow had two calves a year, and 
things wint along very prosperous. The fairies was 
workin' on the lady, too, and she had her eye on me, 
and she knew me fairy cows was on her ranch, and 
that I was joost givin' up to her the twinty years' use 
av thim. So whin the time was gone, she cooms and 
wants me to marry her; but I thought I'd go along on 
me own hook. Oh, this is a very peculiar sort of a 
woruld — this is!" 

My comrade rose and chopped a few strokes, but the 
day was drawing to an end. Some fellow-laborers 



122 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

passed on the street and shouted a greeting to him 
and he concluded to stop work. He put on his vest 
and coat, took up his axe and saw and started for 
home. I went with him, and we walked around into 
the lot where, back of a neighbor's shed, he had his 
queer habitation. It was a big old lumber wagon with 
a piece of canvas spread from the high seat down 
toward the back. The shelter afforded was poor and 
cramped. A few other belongings were scattered about 
in the grass and there was a wreck of a stove that could 
still be made to serve after a fashion. But then, though 
to me these household effects seemed meagre and 
shabby, I do not know that they so impressed the owner. 
He had the gift of imagination; and beautiful as is 
nature in that region, and delightful as is the ancient 
Mission, there is nothing in my visit I remember 
with more pleasure than this man with his visions of 
realms beyond my ken. 

Note. — Santa Barbara is one of the most attractive towns in 
California, beautiful in its surrounding scenery, not so large as to be 
dominated by commercialism, nor so small as to be rude and lacking 
in comfortable accommodations. The old survives amid the new, and 
you can even yet find buildings and life that have the characteristics 
of the time of Spanish rule. Here is the best preserved of all the old 
Missions. Every Mission is worth seeing, but Santa Barbara has 
one where the gowned and sandaled monks still dwell and labor. 



Santa Barbara and Its Historic Mission 123 

The chief outdoor pleasures for the sojourner here are coaching, 
cross-country horseback riding, fishing, and hunting. Most visitors 
would be interested to read the account of early days in Santa 
Barbara to be found in Dana's "Two Years Before the Mast." This 
book, in fact, entertainingly describes the aspect and customs of 
every old sea town from San Francisco to San Diego. 

The climate in this region is mild and equable, but It is also ex- 
cessively dry, with the result that the roads are dusty most of the 
year. In the winter and spring, however, during the rainy season, 
they are often so heavy as to be impassable for automobiles in the 
mountain sections. But, as a rule, the coast roads out of Santa 
Barbara are fairly good, though there are always some dubious spots. 
The main motor route continues south to Los Angeles and San 
Diego, and north to San Francisco. 



VI 



A VALE OF PLENTY 



CALIFORNIA has a number of valleys that are at 
the same time remarkable for their great size and 
their productive capacity, but the San Joaquin 
excels any of the others. A few decades ago it was not 
esteemed of much use except for grazing, though cer- 
tain parts would grow excellent crops of wheat; but 
irrigation has changed all this, and as you pass through 
it on the train you marvel at the seemingly endless 
succession of thriving fields and orchards. 

My first day in the valley was a Sunday spent at a 
little village consisting mostly of a hotel and a few 
stores and saloons facing the railway. Round about 
was a vast level extending for miles in every direction, 
and nearly all of it green with wheat. At long intervals, 
amid this green sea could be discerned a small huddle 
of buildings where there was a ranch house. It was 
one of the regions in which, when the grain ripens, a 
harvester is used that is drawn by thirty-six mules or 
horses, and that cuts off the heads of the wheat, threshes 
out the grain and drops it in sacks behind. Forty acres 

124 



A Vale of Plenty 125 

will be covered daily on good ground and the season 
lasts three months. After the harvester has finished, 
the cattle are turned onto the land and they feed on 
the stubble and trample it so it can be ploughed under. 

For an hour or two in the morning I sat on the hotel 
piazza a little way from a group of men gathered near 
the door of the odorous barroom. The day was 
quiet and warm. The flies buzzed, and some sparrows 
chattered noisily and flitted about with bits of straw and 
bark and string for their nest-building beneath the 
cornice of the piazza. A few teams were hitched to 
railings under the umbrella trees along the sidewalk, 
and there were occasional passers on the highway. One 
of these passers was a man driving two burros laden 
with packs. The creatures walked slowly and 
patiently and he followed behind. He was from some 
mine, and all his outfit and belongings were on the 
donkeys. A boy on horseback rode up in front of the 
hotel and borrowed the proprietor's gun that he might 
do a little hunting. A tramp came along and wanted 
something to eat, and he was set at work chopping 
wood. Except for him it was a day of loafing and 
recreation. 

The largest group of loiterers gathered in front of 
the post oflBce to watch or participate in a game of 
marbles. The players were young men and boys. A 
little fellow named Danny was getting the advantage 



126 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

when I joined the on-lookers, and a young man in blue 
trousers, who was addressed as "Chub," was about to 
snap his taw at Danny's. "I want to kill Danny," he 
said, "and make him give up his winnings." 

But he missed, and his marble rolled under the 
piazza. "Well, Til be dog-goned!" he exclaimed. 
"That's just the way my luck runs today." 

The piazza underpinning was boarded nearly to the 
ground. He lay down and reached unsuccessfully 
into the gloom. Then several others tried it, and at 
last one of them got a stick to poke with, and pretty 
soon secured the taw. 

" It's Al's shot, ain't it .?" asked Danny. 

"Look out for me. I'm comin'!" cried Al. 

To his disgust his taw stopped in the ring, and the 
rules obliged him to drop in a marble to get it out. 
"Well, that fattens the ring, anyhow," he said philo- 
sophically as he made the exchange. " Knock down 
there, Nick; it's your turn." 

Nick's taw was near the ring, and that he might make 
a sure shot he punched up a little heap of dirt where a 
marble lay in the ring and put the marble on top. His 
method proved a success, and Chub said, "He sets the 
marble up on a nubbin and then fudges it right off. 
Us fellers had better holler when he gets ready again 
so he won't shoot straight. That's what the boys used 
to do at school. It always mixed me up and made me 



A Vale of Plenty 127 

mad, and Td fight. But it didn't do no good if I did 
fight. Vd get licked every time." 

Nick made careful preparations for a second shot, 
but just as he snapped his taw his comrades all shouted, 
and he was so confused he missed. The taw rolled 
along and hit someone's foot. "Kicks on!" the players 
cried, and the one who had stopped it gave it a poke 
with his foot to carry it where he thought it would 
naturally have gone. 

"You're havin' a pretty hot game," commented a 
newcomer. 

"It's a warm one, I tell yer," responded Al. 

"I was afraid this was goin' to be a lonesome old 
day," said Chub, "but I've had a lot of fun;" and the 
game continued hour after hour until dinner time. 
Then the participants divided the marbles, for they 
did not play for keeps, and went their several ways. 

The Sabbath as I saw it here is characteristic of the 
Far West. Nearly everywhere it is a holiday to a very 
marked extent, and church-going is decidedly less the 
habit than in the East. Ball games are one of the most 
popular of the amusements of the day; and when I 
chanced to spend a Sabbath at Visalia, a busy town in 
the heart of one of the best portions of the valley, the 
chief event of the day was the getting out of the fire 
engine for a little sport and practice squirting around 
the streets. 



128 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

It was the rainy season, and we had several heavy 
downpours that night which left the region pretty 
thoroughly soaked. However, the sun shone forth the 
next morning, and in spite of the miry walking I started 
for a long ramble among the farms. I had to do a good 
deal of dodging to get around the pools and puddles, 
and there were certain of the "slues" in the hollows 
which almost brought me to a stop. Yet by climbing 
along on fences or resorting to the embankment of an 
irrigating ditch, or by cutting across a field I contrived 
to continue my ramble. 

The country was good to look at in spite of the over- 
abundance of mud and water. On the eastern horizon 
rose ranges of snowy mountains, but the lowlands were 
a green paradise. The grazing fields, in particular, 
were very beautiful with their cattle, horses, or hogs, 
and with their scattering ancient oaks. These oaks 
abounded, but never gathered in a thick wood. They 
were wide-spreading and stately and made the country 
look like a park. Other native trees were very few, 
except along the streams, which were apt to be thickly 
screened by willows and cottonwoods. Many great 
tracts of land were set out to regular rows of prune and 
peach trees, and every farmhouse seemed to have its 
packing shed and its great heap of wooden drying-trays. 
Formerly pears were a staple fruit, but some sort of a 
blight has put the trees out of business. 




Th 



e news 



A Vale of Plenty 129 

The people I met and spoke with were agreed that 
it was an unusual condition to have too much water, and 
the owners of the flooded lands were not altogether 
happy, yet any damage they suff*ered was largely offset 
by the drowning of such pests as the gophers and ground 
squirrels. The local conditions therefore were on the 
whole satisfactory, but certain other sections had not 
fared so well. For instance, in the same county, there 
used to be a lake thirty miles broad and a hundred 
long. It afforded fine fishing, and the hunters resorted 
to it to shoot the abounding ducks and geese. Gradually 
it dried away and left some of the richest farmland in 
the world. The old lake-bed became a great wheat- 
producing district, but now the heavy rains had begun 
to fill the basin of the former lake, and the body of water 
was fast expanding to its former size. The wheat had 
grown to be waist high and was well headed out, but 
the lake-bed dwellers had to abandon everything except 
the little they could carry away, and, driving their stock 
before them, they sought more elevated ground. It was 
thought that many years must pass before the water 
would again dry away. 

As I walked on I at length wandered into a little 
village. Near its center I stopped on the piazza of a 
bakeshop. Here was a chair, a settee and several boxes 
occupied by a row of men smoking, spitting and talking. 
The weather was not propitious for field work, and 



130 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

the piazza group was in a very leisurely and hospitable 
frame of mind. If anyone passed, either walking or 
driving, they never failed to shout out an invitation to 
stop. "Come and join us," they would say. "You'll 
never find a better lookin' crowd in your life." 

If the passer was riding, the remarks would continue, 
*'Aw! get out and tie up. Take a rest. Don't be in 
such a rush." 

Presently a fellow approached driving a smart span 
of horses attached to a gig. " Hold on to them ribbons 
thar!" was the cry from the piazza. 

The man in the gig slowed down and halted. His 
vehicle was old and weatherbeaten, but it had a bright 
red whiffletree. "Why didn't you paint the rest of 
your gig .^" someone queried. 

"Well," said the driver, "I left it that way so people'd 
ask questions." 

"Say, but you would shine if your gig was all painted 
that style," remarked one of the lookers-on. 

"This is a nice little team," said the occupant of 
the gig. "I've driven 'em about fifteen miles and now 
I think I'll put 'em in the stable." 

"Oh, no, don't do that," said someone on the porch. 
"Drive 'em some more. It'll make 'em eat their hay 
good." 



A Vale of Plenty 131 

Shortly after he had gone a man in a top buggy 
drove up in front of the bakeshop, and one of the loafers 
said, "Looks like you was goin' somewhere." 

The man in the buggy poked his head out and said, 
"Who wants to go to town with me and get drunk ?" 

Some responded that they would like well enough to 
get drunk, but none of them cared to exert themselves 
sufficiently to go to town, and he had to continue his 
journey alone. 

The man of the piazza gathering who interested me 
most was an old settler of the region who had come 
from Tennessee in 1870. "But the country had been 
occupied some for nearly twenty years before that," 
he observed. "In 1852 there was eight or ten families 
built a stockade at Visalia and then put up their log 
cabins against it around on the outside. The Indians 
was dangerous, you see, and even after I come, the 
danger wia'n't past. They'd kill our cattle, and they'd 
take your scalp if they had a good chance. 

"This country in its natural state was a forest of oak 
with here and there an open where the tall grass grew. 
We used to cut the grass for hay. Land could be had 
almost for the asking. You only needed to take up a 
homestead right from the government, and when you 
had paid sixteen dollars and lived on the land five 
years you were owner of a quarter section — one hun- 
dred and sixty acres. Deer, antelopes and wild mus- 



132 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

tangs was plenty. You'd often see the antelopes feeding 
in among the cattle. People e't their meat, but it was 
coarse and not so good as deer meat. You could go up 
there in those foothills you see to the east and kill a 
wagon load of deer in a day. They roamed about fifty 
to a hundred in a band. 

"Bears was common up in the mountains — brown, 
cinnamon, black and grizzlies; but I wa'n't lookin' 
for them fellers. I was willin' to make friends. If 
they'd let me alone Fd let them alone, you bet yer boots 
I would. But one time I was up there helpin' old Billy 
Rhoades with his sheep. Fred Stacy was with me, and 
we was goin' across a little medder when we see a 
full-grown grizzly bear with a cub follerin' her, and they 
was comin' straight toward us. 

"It happened there was a cluster of smallish pine 
trees near by, and Fred went up one tree and I went up 
another. I didn't have a thing to shoot with, and I 
don't suppose I'd have used a gun if I'd had one. The 
bear kind o' looked up at us but kept on down the trail. 
She found our camp, and she turned over our potatoes 
and beans and scattered them and our other things all 
about. Yes, she had a regular tear-up. But I was 
glad to git off with no worse damage. A bear with a 
cub will fight, you know, and I come as clost to a grizzly 
then as I want to, less'n the bear was in a cage. 



^<l 




Water for irrigation 



A Vale of Plenty 133 

"Another time old man Rhoades and his son was 
fetchin' some sheep off the mountains, and the boy 
went into a canyon for a drink. He lay down to git 
at the water when a black bear jumped out of the 
willers onto him and begun a-chawin' him. He hollered 
for the old man, who come hurryin' down — and there 
was the bear chawin' on his boy. The only thing the 
old man had to attack the bear with was a pocket knife. 
That was a poor weapon, but he saw he had the job to 
do, and he didn't hesitate. The bear was on the boy, 
and the old man was on the bear; and he got her, and 
he skinned her afterward. She mighty nigh killed the 
boy, and the old man was so tore and scratched he 
carried the scars to his grave. 

"Anyone could have a horse in the early days by 
just goin' out and ketchin' a wild mustang. The way 
we used to do that was to build a corral consisting of a 
fence about eight feet high around a half acre or so, 
with a long wing fence extending out from it. Then 
when we see some mustangs feeding near we'd go out 
on the far side of 'em and give a yell to start 'em, and 
by heading 'em off we'd drive 'em against the wing 
fence and run 'em right into the corral. After that a 
man would go in and lasso one. He'd have to be on 
horseback or they'd run right over him. 

"When he got a mustang roped he'd drag him out, 
put on a bridle and saddle, blindfold him and get on. 



134 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

The mustang didn't Hke that, and he'd begin to buck. 
Seems to me I've seen 'em buck as high as that school- 
house over across the road. No matter what the 
mustang did, the rider had got to stick on. That was 
the only way those horses could be broke. They were 
the meanest things you ever see. They were good saddle 
ponies though — fine! An ordinary horse wouldn't 
stand half what they would. The mustangs were small, 
but they were tough and hardy — kind o' like a Jack 
rabbit. You could run one all day, and it would be 
about as good at the end as when it started; and the 
next morning it would buck you off if you wa'n't careful. 

"When I come here, cattle, sheep and hogs were all 
the go. There was very little soil cultivated; but 
gradually it got to be a great wheat country. Now 
wheat has given way to orchards, and we ship fruit all 
over the world. Alfalfa is grown quite a little and is 
more of a money-maker than fruit. It's ready to cut 
now, and we're only waiting till the weather is settled 
so we can cure it. We git four or five crops by the time 
the frosts bring the season to an end. It's good feed for 
cattle and all right for horses if you use some grain hay 
with it. By grain hay I mean barley and wheat cut 
when it is in a stiff dough — that is with the grain just 
past the milk stage. 

"I used to raise wheat, but we had fifteen dry seasons 
right a-running which did me up. Now the weather 




At work along an irrigating ditch 



A Vale of Plenty 135 

seems to have changed and I look for fifteen wet seasons. 
So I'm goin' to try wheat again. You ain't sure of a 
crop unless you irrigate. When we people come here 
from the East we didn't know anything about irrigation. 
But somebody tried it and found it a success. Then 
we all turned loose. It's a good thing. At the same 
time there's a lot of hard, dirty work in irrigating. 

"First you're obliged to plough and scrape till you've 
got your land level and in check. We put two or three 
acres in a check with a levee around it. The checks 
have to be smaller if the land is rough. Our land here 
is pretty smooth, and two men with a pair of horses 
can git a quarter section in order — leveling checks, 
making ditches and floodgates, all in about a couple of 
months. But you are out something right along 
digging to keep the channels clear and making repairs. 
Still, if a man would give me a place back in Tennessee 
whar I come from I wouldn't take it nohow, if I had to 
live on it. In a wet season your corn would turn yaller 
as a punkin — it was aggra^'<3tin' ! 

"To show you what can be done here I want to tel 
you about a little orchard of apricots I bought a year 
ago. Everybody claimed it was run out, but I trimmed 
the trees and worked the ground and I got eight tons 
of fruit which I sold for twenty dollars a ton. That 
was better than a thump on the head with a sharp 
stone, wa'n't it ^ 



136 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

"You can raise anything that will grow on the top 
side of the earth, in this valley. I got only two objec- 
tions to it — in over half the land there's alkali, and 
secondly malaria is a good deal too common. You 
notice our houses ain't got cellars and are set up on 
posts off the ground — some of 'em three or four feet. 
That's on account of malaria. 

"Perhaps it strikes you the houses must be cold in 
winter, but we don't have such sharp weather as they 
have in other parts of United States. I ain't seen but 
one snowfall in all the time I been here. You take a 
person from back East and drop 'em down here in 
March and they think they're in Paradise. Thar's an 
old lady from Iowa just come lately to this place, and 
she says it is the prettiest country she ever cast her eyes 
on. When she come everybody was freezin' and hov- 
erin' over the fire in Iowa, while here it wa'n't cold 
worth mentioning, and she says, *Here I'll live and 
here I'll die.' 

" But things ain't always so pleasant in our valley as 
people think they're goin' to be. Thar's a mighty lot 
gits fooled. They think they can pick up twenty-dollar 
gold pieces, dog-gone-it; and they have it all figured 
out how easy they can make their fortunes. So as soon 
as they see a piece of property that they fancy they just 
dive in and pay a good round price. Then when they 
find they can't git rich in a few weeks Hke they expected, 



A Vale of Plenty 137 

they're sorry they grabbed so quick. Often they're so 
homesick that they're ready to take whatever anybody'll 
give for the property they've bought. There's an old 
negro here has picked up a lot of land from such fellers 
till he's got fifteen or twenty sections, and it's all paid 
for, too. He's a mighty good darkey. What he agrees 
to do he does, and he's looked up to about as much as 
anyone in this region. He's a cattle-man and a hog- 
man and has money laid away. Every one of his girls 
that gets married he gives five thousand dollars and a 
piece of land. That's a pretty good starter, eh } 

"The poor investments that are made by strangers 
are mostly the fault of the real estate agents. I know 
of a man who sold out in Kansas and come here 
and a real estate agent induced him to buy a section of 
old alkali land at forty dollars an acre — made him 
believe it was the richest land in the country. The agent 
done wrong. I call that robbery. The land wouldn't 
sprout backyard peas. It wa'n't fitten to look at. Even 
salt grass wouldn't grow on some of it. You know what 
poor stuff salt grass is. The cattle will eat it when they 
can't get anything else, but it's tough and they got to 
have good teeth to bite it, and it won't fatten 'em any. 
Well, that man put up a house and a barn and a corral 
before he found out what sort of a bargain he'd made. 
He finally went back to where he come from, and his 



138 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

buildings are standing empty. He's got his money in 
that place, and he'll never get it out. 

"Of course a good many fellers have taken land and 
made money; but there's a blamed sight more who have 
lost." 

As a whole the region around Visalia looked produc- 
tive and prosperous, and in order to see some of the 
poorer land of the valley I went on farther north. It 
so happened that I reached the place I had selected 
soon after five in the morning. There was no station — 
only a half dozen little homes and two or three small 
dilapidated stores, and a white schoolhouse that stood 
by itself off a quarter of a mile on the open unfenced 
prairie. A streak of yellow above the serrated peaks 
of an endless chain of snowy mountains in the east gave 
promise of the dawn. On the telegraph lines perched 
a twittering group of linnets. Near by was a box 
freight car, and while I stood looking around me, a 
tramp slid out of the car, shouldered his bag and went 
off along the track; but on the outskirts of the settle- 
ment he stopped, built a little fire, and I suppose cooked 
himself some sort of a breakfast. 

I walked out on the prairie. Here and there I could 
see scattered houses — rather forlorn-looking places, 
most of them, and usually with no thought whatever 
bestowed on appearances. The plain was perfectly 
treeless, except that an occasional home had about it a 




o 



o 
o 



'^ 



A Vale of Plenty 139 

few shade or fruit trees, and now and then a cluster of 
willow bushes grew beside the irrigating ditches. The 
ditches conveyed water to some alfalfa farms two or 
three miles away where the soil was deeper. Most of 
the land in the neighborhood was only fit for grazing, 
and close under the surface lay "hardpan" — a soft 
sandstone. At one place I came across men at work 
setting out fruit trees. They were on low ground 
where the soil had accumulated a little, but in order 
that the tree roots might have a chance to develop 
satisfactorily the workers were blasting holes in the 
hardpan, one for each tree. A few horses, cows and 
goats were staked out near the village homes, and I 
saw a drove of black hogs munching along over the 
knolls, and late in the forenoon a vast flock of sheep 
drifted past. 

A squad of men from the nearest town were plough- 
ing, scraping and grading the road, which heretofore 
had never been turnpiked. The soil was very hard, 
and one of the men said, " It's rough on the tools. I had 
a new plough yesterday and in three hours I wore the 
point plumb out. I don't see how these fellers that 
keep store here make a livin'. They never seem to be 
doin' no outside work and there's mighty few customers. 
Most o' the time they stand at the door lookin' for us 
to come in and spend the money we make on the road. 
Yet they wear good clothes and smoke a cigaret once 



140 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

in a while. One of 'em has a sheep ranch. I guess 
he's gettin' along all right. He had a Jim Dandy little 
wagon come to him on the train last week." 

The man now turned to his work and I went to watch 
some boys not far away who were gathered around a 
small pond grabbing for pollywogs. They said they 
were going to use them for fish bait, and they had 
started to tell me about their luck in fishing when the 
bell in the schoolhouse cupola gave a few jingles. 
At once the boys dropped the pollywogs and scudded 
away across the prairie to the temple of learning. 

For the sake of variety I went in to have a look at one 
of the stores. It was not much more than a shanty 
and the supply of goods was very meagre. "Billy" 
McDonald was the proprietor. I found him a good 
deal disturbed because his horse was missing. "I left 
her loose in the stable last night," said he, "and she 
got out and has gone back to town where I bought her 
not long ago." 

A customer came in. He was a stranger who hap- 
pened to be driving through the place and he wanted 
to purchase some soap. Billy seemed surprised. He 
didn't carry such an article in his stock. "Neither 
did the other store," he explained. So the customer 
bought a glass of whiskey instead. 

Later in the day I again took the train and was soon 
in a region more favored. Indeed, in my memory of 



A Vale of Plenty 141 

the valley I see little else than a constant succession of 
orchards and vineyards and great wheat fields and 
luxuriant pastures. But the homes did not seem in 
keeping with nature's affluence. Many were unpainted, 
unshadowed and shabby and small, and looked as if 
in the heat of summer they would be blistered off the 
face of the earth. Few were such as we in our older 
Eastern states would consider at all attractive or com- 
fortable. That the Vale of Plenty should have its 
imperfections is to be expected; and on the other hand 
its attractions are many, and there lies before it a future 
full of promise. 

Note. — The San Joaquin Valley is one of the great agricultura 
basins of the world. It is two hundred and fifty miles long by about 
fifty wide. In it grows half the wheat raised in the state, and wheat 
farms of ten thousand to fifty thousand acres are not uncommon 
Here, too, you may see thousands of acres of alfalfa, vast vineyards 
and astonishingly large orchards of prunes, peaches, apricots, figs 
and other fruits. It produces nearly all the raisins of the United 
States, and fabulous crops of asparagus, potatoes, beans and melons 
and it is famous for its cattle, sheep and hogs. Stop at any of the 
chief towns, such as Visalia, Fresno, or Stockton, and journey out into 
the surrounding country and see what is being done. Irrigation is 
the chief dependence for producing crops, and water for this purpose 
is abundant. 

Another attraction of the valley is the excursions that can be made 
from it into the Sierras. Best of all is a visit to the Yosemite, but 
scarcely less interesting is a trip to the wild canyon of King's River. 
This latter journey is made from Visalia, partly by stage, partly by 



142 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

pack and saddle train. The gorge lacks the waterfalls of the Yosem- 
ite, and its walls are not so precipitous, but they rise into even wilder 
and more stupendous heights. On account of snow and flooded 
streams, July and August are the best months for the trip. To add 
to the fascination of this jaunt you have close at hand Mount Whit- 
ney, the loftiest mountain in the United States, if we except the 
Alaskan giants. It is easily ascended from the west side. The 
streams are full of trout, and game abounds. Still another attrac- 
tion of the region Is the General Grant National Park containing 
many of the famous big trees. 

The Sierra Nevada (in English the words mean Snowy Range) 
sweeps along the eastern borders of California for fully 500 miles. 
It abounds in scenery of marvellous grandeur, and offers many 
attractions to the Alpine explorer. 

The Union Pacific Railroad, as It climbs the mountains toward 
Nevada, passes through 37 miles of snowsheds. 

Although Mount Whitney which soars up 14,502 feet Is the highest 
point In the United States, It Is a curious fact that only 75 miles 
away Is the lowest point, 275 feet below the sea-level. In Death 
Valley. This valley acquired its name from the loss of numerous 
emigrants who attempted to pass through it in 1849. 




The road to the mountains 



VII 

APRIL IN THE YOSEMITE 

FROM the San Joaquin Valley I went by a branch 
railroad to Raymond far back in the Sierra 
foothills. The journey was delightful. Every- 
where were flowery fields and pastures, and at times 
the wastelands were fairly covered with radiant blossoms. 
Some of the patches and streaks of bloom were blue, 
some purple, some white, and still others were a blaze 
of reds and yellows. The poppies were perhaps the 
most abundant and striking, but there were multitudes 
of delicate bluebells, and there were "nigger toes" and 
"popcorn" and dainty snowdrops and "little Johnnies" 
and many more. 

Raymond is a half wild little village with some fine 
rough hills and ravines about, but no sign of grand 
mountains or big trees or charming waterfalls. The 
Yosemite was still distant a two days' stage drive. It 
was the opening of the season and visitors were few. 
Only two others went on when I did. They were an 
elderly man and wife. But the stage also carried 
several men who were going to the Valley to work, one 

143 



144 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

of them a Chinaman cook, another a blacksmith 
known as "Hank," and a third whom his comrades 
addressed as "Bud." The stage was a three-seated 
top wagon, and I sat on the front seat between the 
driver and the blacksmith. 

Hour after hour we went on climbing among the rough, 
stony hills. They were not very interesting. Every- 
where were granite boulders and scattered oaks gar- 
landed with mistletoe, and now and then would occur a 
scrawny pine. In places there was much undergrowth 
such as sagebrush, chaparral, buckeye, and a bushy 
lupine that was loaded with purple blossoms. Then, too, 
there were great patches of poison oak, each shrub a 
reddish mass of new foliage. "You want to be careful 
how you walk through that," advised the driver; 
"though some people ain't affected by it at all. It 
don't trouble me none, and IVe monkeyed with it for 
forty years — walked through it, handled it, and even 
had it in my mouth." 

Grass was so plentiful that the driver remarked, "I 
would just like to be a cow for the next three months, 
rd be sure to have all I wanted to eat, and Fd have 
nothing to do only to lie around. But by the end of 
June the grass will be dried brown, and the pasturing 
won't be so pleasant. Still, that brown grass ain't bad; 
for it's like hay and is all right till we have rains to 
wash the goodness out. We are likely to get wet 



April in the Yosemite 145 

weather in October, and then the cattle have a hard 
time. But if the rains come early in the fall the new 
grass soon starts. If the rains are late the dry feed is 
destroyed and the new doesn't get a chance to take its 
place. So the cattle half starve all winter.'' 

In the valleys were occasional little farms or the 
homes of ranchmen, and presently the elderly man on 
the back seat pointed to one of these and said, "It 
seems to me that the people who live there must lead a 
lonely life." 

"Oh, no," responded the driver, "they can drive to 
town in forty minutes; but then, they don't go there 
very often because they're afraid of the cars." 

We frequently saw birds. Red-headed woodpeckers 
were working away on the dead trees and the telegraph 
poles, and blue jays and linnets were common. Once 
I got a glimpse of a robin, and there were a few hawks 
and soaring buzzards. The driver called my attention 
to a quail standing under a bush, and said, *' These 
foothills are full of them in the fall." 

Several times we had a momentary glimpse of a 
ground squirrel scudding to shelter. The blacksmith 
claimed these squirrels were good to eat, but the driver 
declared they were no better than rats. "Well," said 
the blacksmith, "cook 'em properly and they're good 
enough for anybody." 

"Some people eat rattlesnakes," observed the driver 



1^6 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

**If I was going to eat one I'd want to kill it myself," 
the blacksmith said. "You know if you only just 
wound one it will bite itself where it was hurt and fill 
its flesh full of poison. 

In a number of spots along the way were rubbish 
dumps of dirt and broken stone where some old gold 
mine had been worked, and the lady passenger wished 
she could get out and hunt for a "nudget." We passed 
through Grub Gulch which contains a mine still in 
operation, and in the rough mountain hollow was a 
rude little hamlet. The mine is not of much account; 
but in the booming days that followed its discovery 
there was a wild and lawless community here. "They 
used to have a man for breakfast every little while,'* 
declared the driver. 

Now and then we met a team, and among the rest 
were several wagons loaded with apples that left a 
trail of delicious fragrance behind them. Later we 
saw the orchards in the secluded mountain glens, and 
I asked the driver if the fruit was profitable. He said, 
"That depends on the man who raises it and on cir- 
cumstances. The fellow that handles this orchard we 
are passing has hard scratching to make ends meet, and 
he's close as a mosquito, too; but some do very well." 

Much of the way the road clung to a steep hillside. 
It was narrow and crooked, and on the outer side looked 
dangerously precipitous. When teams approached 



April in the Yosemite 147 

each other the drivers shouted a warning and were 
apt to stop to consider just how to pass. The 
broadest place possible was selected and one team 
crowded up to the bank while the other drove gingerly 
along on the verge. Our own experience was mild 
compared with what it would have been later in the 
season when the five-span freighting wagons were 
running. 

We were constantly encountering streams. They 
were seldom bridged and we splashed straight across. 
It was a pleasure to see them, for they were not like the 
muddy streams of the lowlands, but were clear and 
sweet, with stone-strewn courses down which they 
leaped and foamed with unceasing melody. The road 
was more or less muddy, but the driver assured us that 
the first thirty miles of our journey were decidedly 
pleasanter than they would be in summer. Then there 
would be dust and torrid heat. "Why," said he, "it 
gets so hot that the wagon tongues hang out. I've seen 
the thermometer up to 118 in the shade." 

One of the things that adds zest to the stage trip is 
the possibility of a hold-up. In the past these hold-ups 
have occurred about once in four years. The previous 
season a highwayman had relieved a load of tourists 
of their purses, but did not take their jewelry or watches. 
He apologized for the annoyance he was causing and 
said he didn't like to have to resort to such a practice, 



148 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

but he needed the money. When the collection had 
been finished an English tourist got out his camera 
and said to the desperado, "Fd Uke to take your pic- 
ture, you know." 

"Certainly," wp.s the reply, "go ahead," and he 
submitted to the photographing very gracefully and 
then departed. 

The hold-up that preceded this one was an affair of 
more consequence. There were five stages going up 
the valley that day, one behind another, and a single 
man held them all up right in a bunch. He was a little 
particular, and when he thought a man had not turned 
over to him as much money as he carried, he ordered 
his victim to "dig up some more." But he 

was not without a touch of ceremonial politeness, for 
he presented each of his benefactors with his card on 
which was printed the words, "The Black Kid." 
At length his work was completed and he took to the 
brush and was seen no more. 

We stopped once in ten or twelve miles to change 
horses, but this made little delay as the horses were 
harnessed and waiting for us. The longest pause was 
twenty minutes at the station where we had our noon 
lunch. After this lunch the blacksmith, as he settled 
himself in his place, smacked his hps and declared tha 
the cream pie he had eaten for dessert was the finest 
pie of any sort he had ever tasted. "The only fault I 



April in the Yosemite 149 

have to find," said he in conclusion, "is that the cook 
is too good a mathematicianer and cuts his pies into 
too many pieces." 

By mid-afternoon we had passed the foothills, and 
ahead of us lay a mountain. Bud informed the driver 
that he v^as going to get out and "hike" for a v^hile, and 
when he alighted the blacksmith and I joined him. 
The trees had become more numerous and there were 
many tall, handsome yellow pines. Bushes were fewer, 
but in places the ground was hidden by a low evergreen 
growth of bear clover. "The bears don't eat it," said 
the blacksmith, "but it smells like 'em." 

"Seems to me," said Bud, "it smells just like a wet 
dog; and if you walk through it for an hour or two in 
summer you'll have that smell on your clothes for the 
rest of your life." 

Just then the blacksmith found a horseshoe in the 
road and he hung it up on a bush. "That'll bring me 
good luck," he remarked. 

"I don't know about that," was Bud's comment. 
"I've quit hangin' 'em up lately because I noticed I 
got drunk as a lord every time I did it." 

As we climbed upward the ground became increas- 
ingly muddy and slippery, and at length patches of 
snow were to be seen here and there in the woodland. 
These were larger and more frequent as we went higher 
until the mantle of white was everywhere. The sky 



150 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

had gloomed over and it began to storm, a mixture of 
rain and sleet. Now we arrived at a rough shanty and 
barn where the stage was to change horses. What a 
wintry wilderness it was! — white roofs and a giant 
evergreen forest roundabout, gloomy and mysterious 
with the cold storm. 

When the stage came we walkers got in and tucked 
the blankets tightly about us and everyone prepared for 
a disagreeable journey; but shortly the mists drifted 
away and the sun shone into the shaggy, dripping 
woodland, and brightened the dark foliage and the 
brown, rough-barked tree trunks. The driver seemed 
anxious about his return trip on the morrow. "Gee! 
this snow'll be frozen then," he said, " and it'll be slick 
as glass. The brakes won't hold and I'll have a lot o' 
trouble to keep the wagon from runnin' onto the horses." 

We presently passed over the top of the mountain 
ridge and were in really magnificent forest that man 
had never devastated. The trees grew to full maturity 
and died and fell to enrich the mountain mould for 
future generations just as their ancestors had before 
them from time immemorial. Many of the sugar and 
yellow pines and cedars were four to six feet in diameter, 
and they often towered up fully two hundred feet. It 
was a satisfaction just to look at their straight and 
towering boles. The noblest of the trees and those most 
prized by the lumbermen were the sugar pines. Speci- 




The Yosemite Falls 



April in the Yosemite 151 

mens have been found that had attained a thickness of 
twelve feet and v^ere still living, sound in every fiber. 
The cones are very large and handsome. They grovs^ to 
be from a foot to eighteen inches long and beautify the 
tree and ground beneath for months after the seeds 
have taken wing. The tree's name comes from a sweet 
gum that exudes from the heart-wood where wounds 
have been made either by forest fires or the ax. The 
gum takes the shape of irregular, crisp clusters of 
kernels. When fresh it is perfectly white and delicious. 
In descending the mountain it was quite necessary to 
hold on. The wheels cut through the snow in a very 
uncertain way, and we thumped and jolted and shook 
about in a manner that was very disturbing. The lady 
on the seat behind was constantly cautioning her hus- 
band to hang on to her, even if her arm was getting 
blistered with his clutch. When her side of the vehicle 
tipped up she begged him to hurry and shift as near her 
end of the seat as possible to keep the balance. When 
it went the other way she had him shde back to his 
side. Yet in spite of all he could do to act as ballast she 
was certain at times we were going over. "Oh, oh!'* 
she exclaimed as we passed safely through one crisis, 
"what foolishness to come all this way and over such 
poor and dangerous roads just to see a little scenery 
that we may not care for after all! I told you we would 
regret it, but you were bound to come." 



152 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

Once wiien the driver let the horses break into a trot 
along the verge of a precipice she ordered him to 
"Stop!" and added in an aside that she had never seen 
such reckless driving. Gradually we had left the snow 
behind and now we were much of the time dragging 
along in the mud. Darkness came, but at last we saw 
the lights of the tiny settlement of Wawona ahead and 
came out into a clearing in the valley basin, and there 
was our hotel with shelter and warmth and food. 

The ground was stiff with frost the next morning, the air 
crisp and clear. We were on the road at seven and were 
soon climbing another mountain, snugging along the 
slope and creeping in and out of the ravines. Deer 
tracks w^ere frequent in the highway mud, and these set 
the Yosemite workers who were on the stage to telling 
their experiences in hunting the animals, and they 
pointed out this place and that along the trail where 
they had shot one or more. We were on a government 
reservation where hunting was against the law, and from 
May to October a hundred of Uncle Sam's cavalry 
were stationed at Wawona to see that the law was 
enforced. But after the cavalry left, the huntsmen 
banged away very much as they pleased. While the 
soldier guardians were present they exercised some 
degree of restraint, yet the efficiency of the troops was 
generally rated pretty low. According to a state official 
whose headquarters were in the Yosemite they were 



April in the Yosemite 153 

worse than useless. "FU give you an instance," said 
he. " Five soldiers caught one of the fellows that lives 
in these parts out hunting and they started for camp 
with him. But on the way a deer crossed their trail, 
and every one of the soldiers shot at it and missed. 
*Give me my gun,' says the prisoner, *and FU kill the 
deer for you, if you want me to.' 

"So they gave him his gun and he brought down the 
deer. 'Well,' they says, *you can keep your gun and 
hike out.' 

"Yes, sir, these soldiers kill any quantity of game 
and they've fished out every stream and lake in this 
region. Before them Arabs got in here we had some 
of the finest fishing in the Sierras. 

"Once the captain told me he was going to bring his 
cavalry up to camp in the Valley. Him and I locked 
horns right there and the soldiers didn't come. Thunder 
and lightning! I have no use for their sort, and there's 
too much red tape and pompousness about the whole 
management. The captain has got to come down off 
the roost if he wants to do business with me. Any 
bulldozing proposition won't go. 

"We had a fire on the reservation last summer and 
it burned for six weeks and ran over a territory thirty- 
five miles square. For the whole six weeks the Valley 
was full of smoke, and the tourists who come didn't 
get to see hardly anything at all. The fire very near 



154 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

burned up the soldiers' camp. They were supposed to 
be fighting the fire; but what class of persons are they ? 
A fellow with any ginger in him wouldn't take a job 
at thirteen dollars a month. They aren't in the army 
to work. They know how to beat the game from A to 
Z, and for accomplishing anything really effective they're 
no earthly use. Their police duty is a farce. Why, 
they're constantly getting drunk at Wawona and raising 
thunder. They make a regular scat-house of the place. 
This fire I was speaking of was altogether too much 
for them. They didn't know how to handle it, and they 
didn't care to exert themselves much anyhow. It's 
said that some of them would burn a space around 
themselves and then lie down and have a sleep. By 
and by the fire got up into my region and I took ten 
men and in three days put the whole thing out. With a 
dozen of these California foothill boys I can do every- 
thing five hundred of the soldiers and a brigadier- 
general in command of 'em could do, and a blamed 
sight better. They are supposed to keep cattle and sheep 
off the reservation, but there's men who will feed a 
flock of sheep all around those soldiers. Give me a few 
local rangers and I'd nab every herder that sticks his 
nose across the line. Geewhizacar! I'd catch more 
trespassers in six months than they would in a 
hundred years." 



April in the Yosemite 155 

The stage toiled on till we were again in the white 
winter woods. As we climbed higher the snow grew 
deeper and in some places a passage had been shovelled 
through, leaving walls on either side half-way to the top 
of the stage. Finally we reached a little station over 
six thousand feet above the sea level. It was in a small 
clearing, with the dark, serrated woods all about, and 
it was fairly buried in drifts eight or ten feet deep. 
A narrow channel had been dug, and a little space 
cleared before the barn. We ate a hasty lunch and 
were soon on the road again, wallowing through the 
snow and pitching about in the most exciting manner, 
always with a vague fear that the vehicle might chance 
to turn over and send us to destruction down the moun- 
tain side. 

In time we came to where we could look down on 
the famous Valley — a long winding crevice bounded by 
mighty cliffs and peaks of many varying forms. How 
quiet and protected it did look after all those savage 
inhospitable heights and hollows we had traversed! 
But the thing: that made it most attractive was a slender 
waterfall dropping over the face of one of the giant 
bluffs — dainty, fairy-like and giving the otherwise sober 
landscape a touch of lightness that was very fascinating. 
This fall was the keynote of the scene through all the 
long descent to the valley bottom. It was the Bridal 
Veil, dashing down for nine hundred feet, a mass of 



156 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

foam and spray, and as we drew near we saw shreds of 
rainbow painting the mists. Across the valley the 
driver pointed out another waterfall, but a very tiny 
one, which he said was called "The Maiden's Tear." 

"That's a very curious name," said the lady passen- 
ger. "Why do they call it that .?" 

"Because it is so far from the Bridal Veil," replied 
the driver. 

The valley is about seven miles long and nowhere 
much exceeds a mile in width. Nearly all of it is per- 
fectly level, some of it open meadows and pastures, but 
mostly thinly wooded with tall pines and cedars and 
firs intermingled with occasional deciduous trees or 
groves. A small river, rapid and rocky and crystal 
clear, wended its way through the vale, and, all along, 
the great cliffs soared skyward in many a vast buttress 
and pinnacle. It was a wilderness valley, and yet it 
was so level and secluded and so hedged about by 
protecting mountains that it seemed a spot of eternal 
calm and serenity. 

The Yosemite was first seen by white men in Janu- 
ary, 1 85 1. For some time previous there had been 
friction with the Indians on the mountain borders; 
but the first serious quarrel occurred when six Indians 
visited a trading-post thirty miles west of the Valley, 
and a drunken ruffian from Texas, without any reason- 
able cause, stabbed to the heart the chief of the party. 



April in the Yosemite 157 

The other five savages at once shot the Texan to death 
with their bows and arrows, and retreated to the forest. 
Two nights later a pack of sixteen mules was stolen 
from the trading-post corral by the Indians and driven 
off to the mountains. 

These happenings occasioned great excitement among 
the whites. It was midwinter, yet a company of about 
one hundred men from the vicinity armed themselves 
and started on the trail. The Indians had gone to the 
Yosemite canyon where they converted the mules into 
jerked meat, and there the frontiersmen surprised them 
and slaughtered a large number. It was a massacre 
that included men, women and children. The whites 
were revenged and they left the Valley. But, though 
they were the true discoverers of the famous spot it 
was only made known to the outside world by an expe- 
dition that went on a similar raid two months later. 
Those who took part in this second foray had a rough 
time in the snowstorms and deep drifts of the mountains, 
and when they reached the Valley they found no 
Indians except one old squaw. However, the scenery 
so impressed certain members of the party that their 
descriptions of it aroused very wide interest in its 
marvels. 

The Valley is supposed to have been given its peculiar 
character by a convulsion that caused the rock mass 
filling the space to sink to some unknown depth. For 



15S Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

a vast period of time the waste from the sides of the 
cliffs dropped into this abyss, which was doubtless 
occupied by a lake of surpassing beauty. But at length 
the hollow was filled sufficiently by the falling rocks 
and by the soil the streams brought from the regions 
surrounding so that the lake became the present alluvial 
valley. 

Half way up the glen is a village consisting of a two- 
story wooden hotel and its annexes and several photo- 
graph studios, a store, a tiny church and a few dwellings. 
The hamlet looked strangely lost with the tremendous 
heights towering around. Just beyond a meadow the 
Yosemite Fall drops over from the crest of a rock wall 
twenty-six hundred feet high. How slender and 
beautiful it is! and how amazing its long leap! It 
brightens the whole vicinity and relieves the somber- 
ness of the ragged mountainous cliffs, and the air 
resounds with its mellow roar. It is characteristic of 
the canyon that you have the music of the waterfalls 
in your ears wherever you go, while the great rock walls 
loom about with a constantly changing sky-line. Of 
course, not all visitors are satisfied, and one man said 
to me, "These mountains around the Valley are all 
right, but I don't think much of the waterfalls, after 
seeing Niagara.** 

As well say a humming bird is not beautiful because 
you have seen an eagle. 



April in the Yosemite 1 59 

Up at the far end of the valley where it narrows and 
you look ahead into a wild wooded defile, is Mirror 
Lake. This, however, scarcely deserves its name; for 
the only time it is apt to be quiet is before sunrise. Soon, 
afterward the wind sucks down the valley and the sur- 
face is broken with waves for the rest of the day. 

Trails lead to the top of all the important bluffs and 
peaks, and it would seem as if a person could climb to 
his heart's content. But to some people a trail is too 
prosaic and they like the glory of going up where there 
are difficulties and danger. In a recent summer an old 
Alpine climber named Bailey and a young companion 
decided to follow up a steep crevice along the wall of 
El Capitan to the summit of that king of cliffs. It 
proved a very arduous task, and the younger man 
several times urged the elder to return; but the latter 
was determined to go on. They were nearly to the top, 
and Bailey, who was ahead, sat down on a ledge and 
reached his staff to assist his comrade. Suddenly he 
toppled over and bounded along down the rocky slope. 
The young man saw him disappear, and to calm his 
nerves he seated himself and smoked a cigaret. He did 
not dare to descend, and when he rose he struggled up 
to the summit and followed the trail down to the hotel. 
Helpers promptly returned with him carrying a number 
of long ropes, and after a good deal of difficulty they 



i6o Highways and Byways of the Paciiic Coast 

recovered the body of Bailey about seven hundred feet 
below where he fell. 

The winter residents of the Valley number only about 
• thirty, but in summer the village expands wonderfully. 
Hundreds of tents are put up to serve as homes for 
campers and the place is very populous. Formerly 
this was a "tin can town'* just as are most California 
hamlets — that is, the street and neighborhood were 
strewn with the rusty receptacles of canned goods which 
enter largely into the Western bill of fare. But now every 
dweller, temporary or permanent is compelled to bury 
his old tins. It seems a pity that the buildings should 
be so uncomely and cheap, and one regrets the ugly 
wooden or iron bridges, so artificial and out of keeping 
with the landscape. The bridges might well be arches 
of the native stone, simple and permanent, that would 
make the scenes of which they are a part more beautiful 
instead of less so. 

When my visit came to an end and I rode out of the 
Yosemite it was with many a lingering and half-regretful 
backlook as we climbed the mountain, and left behind 
that vale of enchantment with its mighty environing 
heights and delectable waterfalls. Two ladies sat on 
the box seat with the driver, who was unusually youth- 
ful, intelligent and entertaining. They were discussing 
the timidity of travellers, and the driver said, "I have 
had ladies riding on this seat, who, when the wagon 



April in the Yosemite i6i 

gave a bad jolt, would holler and grab hold of me." 

"You liked that, didn't you?'' said the lady next to 
him. 

"Well, not while I was drivin'," he responded. "I 
wouldn't object some other times, perhaps." 

"I suppose you do have some funny people on the 
stage," the lady remarked. 

"Yes," said he, "there was a trip last summer I 
carried a load that was all women, and every one of 
'em was an old maid, and always would be. The 
youngest of the lot must have been thirty-five or forty." 

"That's not so very old," the lady interrupted. 
"There's plenty of chances for her yet." 

"Well," was the driver's response, "all I can say is, 
if she's goin' to marry she'd better get a move on her. 
Those old maids was at me to tell 'em a story, or give 
'em a conundrum; and finally I says, 'Why is it that 
an old maid likes to go to church early ?' 

"They couldn't tell, and I said, * Because she wants 
to be sure to be there when the hymns are given out.' 

"They said I was awful to give such a conundrum as 
that, but it pleased 'em all the same." 

"Were those old maids from the East ?" inquired the 
lady. 

"Yes, there ain't none out here," replied the driver. 
"Our girls all marry, and there's not enough to go 



l62 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

"You are not married, are you?" queried the lady. 

"Oh, I was taken long ago," he responded. "Get 
up. Humpy; go on Smoke!" said he cracking his whip 
over the backs of the front horses. 

"What are the names of the other two .^" the lady 
questioned. 

"Coon and Toothpick," he replied. 

Each of the three hundred and fifty horses on the 
route has its name and its individuality, but I think the 
names of our four had more than the average of pic- 
turesqueness. 

From Wawona, where we arrived in the afternoon, 
I made a side trip to see the big trees. This necessitated 
an eight-mile climb up a mountain side; for the trees 
love a high altitude. The road had only just been 
opened through the snows, and once our stage got 
stuck in a drift. Considerable digging had to be done 
before the struggling horses could drag us free. As we 
were toiling slowly along the driver asked us if we had 
ever seen one of their black California rabbits. We 
never had. 

"Why, there's one now," he said, pointing on ahead. 

Sure enough, there was the rabbit sitting on its 
haunches alert and watchful close by the road, and it 
was nearly three feet tall. I expected every moment 
it would leap away, but we continued to approach and 
it did not move except that I saw an eye blink and its 




I 

o 



April in the Yosemite 163 

ears waggle a trifle. We were all very much excited 
over the sight and v^ere exclaiming softly to one another 
when lo! we suddenly realized that the rabbit was 
nothing but a remnant of a burned-out stump which 
chanced from a certain view-point to have the outline 
of a rabbit. 

When we were well up on the height we changed 
to a sleigh and at last we came to the forest giants. 
They are in the midst of heavy woodland and are 
scattered among trees of various other species, many 
of which are themselves of magnificent girth and 
height; but the sequoias stand out distinctly. Their 
reddish brown bark is unlike the bark of the rest of the 
trees in texture as well as color, and the larger trees far 
exceed in size any of their comrades not of the same 
family. They differ also from the balance of the forest 
in having dome-like tops instead of pointed ones. Most 
of them are sadly scarred about the base by fire; but 
the charred crevices and hollows date far back and are 
said to be due to a habit the Indians had of letting fires 
run through the woodland to clear it of undergrowth 
and make easier travelling and hunting. 

The most venerable and the largest member of the 
clan is the "Grizzly Giant." It is supposed to be over 
five thousand years old, and its immense size, its 
shattered and dead top and gnarled limbs make it look 
like the ancestor of its race. The tree is ninety-three 



164 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

feet in circumference, and its first limb, a hundred feet 
from the ground, has a diameter of six feet. Many of 
the sequoias have broken and bare tops, but this is the 
work of storms rather than age. Even when a big tree 
falls the end is still far off; for the wood does not decay 
readily at heart, and the wasting away from the out- 
side is very slow. Trees that were thrown down before 
the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock are in the Sierra 
forests today with wood in them as sound and bright 
in color as it was in their prime. Most full-grown trees 
are not much over twenty feet in diameter and about 
two hundred and seventy-five feet in height. But the 
giants of the race go up fifty feet more. The trees, 
except for accidents, seem to lack little of being immortal. 
They live on indefinitely until cast down by storms, 
burned, killed by lightning or destroyed by man. 

The fruitfulness of the sequoias is marvelous. The 
cones are only about two inches in length but the 
branches hang full of them and each is packed with 
two or three hundred seeds. Millions of seeds are 
ripened annually by a single tree — no doubt, enough in 
some cases to plant all the mountain ranges in the 
world. However, very few seeds ever get the chance 
to germinate, and of those that do, not one tree in ten 
thousand lives through the vicissitudes that beset its 
youth. Yet trees abound of all ages, from fresh-starting 
saplings to those in the glory of their prime, and the 



April in the Yosemite 165 

giant trees seem abundantly able to maintain their race 
in eternal vigor. 

The day following this visit to the big trees I returned 
to Raymond; and it w^as not so prosaic a change from 
the w^onderland w^here I had been as might have been 
expected. Indeed, it was a real delight to descend from 
the wintry mountains and to gradually find the spring 
about us — at first only faint hints, but finally a green 
earth, and new leafage on the trees and abounding 
blossoms, and the birds flitting and singing. 

Notes. — The word Yosemite means "full grown grizzly bear." 
Since 1905 the park has been in charge of the Federal Government, and 
is policed by two troops of cavalry who camp near the Yosemite Fall. 
This waterfall is the highest in the world with anything like the same 
amount of water. When it comes over the top of the cliffs it is about 
3 5 feet wide. A splendid ice-cone, 500 feet high, forms at the foot 
of the upper fall in winter. 

Bridal Veil Fall derives its name from the effect on it of the wind, 
which often makes it flutter like a filmy veil. 

Travellers now usually go to the valley by way of Merced and 
El Portal. From the latter place, where the railroad ends, a 12-mile 
stage road takes one into the heart of the valley. 

The Yosemite season lasts from early April until October, though 
it is now possible to go at any time without serious discomfort. The 
cold, and the heavy snowfall on the mountains are the chief deter- 
rents to winter visits. The best months are May and June, when 
the falls are full of water and there is no dust. 

The customary way to see the famous Mariposa Grove of Big 
Trees now is to make an excursion from the Yosemite Valley. It 
is 26 miles to the hotel at Wawona, and 8 miles more to the Grove. 
Here are about 600 fine specimens of the sequoia, 



VIII 



AROUND THE GOLDEN GATE 

THE situation of San Francisco makes it a 
logical metropolis. It has one of the largest 
harbors in the world, and there is no other 
that can in the least rival this between San Diego and 
Puget Sound. Besides, the bay and its rivers 
give an admirable opportunity for extensive and cheap 
water commerce inland, and the great fertile valleys 
v/hich open away toward the interior are naturally 
tributary to the city that guards the Golden Gate. 
The city is built on about a dozen hills which add 
greatly to its picturesqueness. It turns its back on 
the sea, and its wharves front the bay easterly. The 
name which designates the passage from the Pacific 
into the harbor was applied by Fremont in 1848, and 
has nothing to do with the gold-bearing districts. 
"Golden" referred to the fertility of the country on the 
shores of the bay. 

The settlement of the place dates back to 1776 when 
the Franciscan Friars established a Mission here. The 
Mission was in the center of the peninsula, half way 

^60 




\ 






o 
O 

-Si 



--Si 






-^ 




O 

o 



1 



Around the Golden Gate 167 

between the sea and the harbor. For over fifty years it 
was the nucleus of quite a village, and the community 
in its prime had a population of five hundred Indians 
and Mexicans. Another settlement was presently 
established on the shore of the bay for commercial pur- 
poses and came to have a considerable trade in hides 
and tallow. 

In January, 1848, James W. Marshall discovered 
gold while digging a ditch for a sawmill about forty-five 
miles northeast of Sacramento. This caused tremendous 
excitement in San Francisco and two thirds of the 
population left for the new region of promise. Lots in 
the city sold for one half what they were worth a month 
before; but the necessities of life began to get scarce in 
the gold camps, and some of the miners returned to 
San Francisco and prepared to profit through the rapid 
increase of business that was sure to come. The large 
finds of gold in the interior brought an inrush of new- 
comers and the population early in 1849 was two 
thousand. By July it was five thousand, and this 
number doubled the following year. Between April 
and December 1849 over five hundred vessels arrived 
bringing thirty-five thousand passengers. As many 
more immigrants came overland; but the great ma- 
jority found their way with little delay to the mines. 
Such was the eagerness to share in the golden fortune 
that scores of vessels lay in the harbor unable to pro- 



i68 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

ceed farther for want of sailors because the crews had 
deserted in a body almost as soon as the anchors were 
dropped. Some of these vessels eventually rotted 
where they were moored. Others were hauled up on 
the beach to serve as storehouses, lodging-houses and 
saloons. For a long time several of them, flanked by 
buildings and wharves, and forming part of a street, 
were original features of the town. 

Money in the period of sudden growth was scarce, 
and gold dust was the principal medium of exchange. 
During 1848 the monthly yield of gold in California 
averaged three hundred thousand dollars, in 1849 a 
million and a half, in 1850 three million. Prices of 
labor and all supplies were very high. Flour was forty 
dollars a barrel, butter ninety cents a pound, a loaf of 
bread fifty cents, a hard boiled egg one dollar. A tin 
pan or a wooden bowl cost five dollars, and a pick or a 
shovel ten dollars. But laborers received a dollar an 
hour, and in spite of the cost of living everybody made 
money. 

Bayard Taylor who visited San Francisco at this 
time says that, "Around the curve of the bay hundreds 
of tents and houses appeared, scattered all over the 
heights and along the shore for more than a mile. On 
every side stood buildings begun or half finished, and 
the greater part of them were canvas sheds open in 
front, and with signs in all languages. Great quantities 



Around the Golden Gate 169 

of goods were piled in the open air for want of a place 
to store them. The streets were full of people hurrying 
to and fro, and of as diverse and bizarre a character as 
the houses." 

The winter season of 1849 and 1850 was very rainy, 
and the streets, which had not as yet been either graded 
or paved, became simply impassable. In many places 
wagons would sink to the wheel-hubs, and the animals 
were sometimes so deeply mired they could not be 
extricated and were left to die where they were. Trees 
and shrubbery and boxes and barrels of goods were 
thrown into the streets to afford a passage-way. 

The city continued its rapid growth, and by 1853 
the population had increased to forty-two thousand. 
With the influx of treasure-seekers came a motley 
crowd of adventurers from all points on the Pacific 
Coast, Australia and the East, and many of them made 
a living by preying on their fellows. Gambling jumped 
into popular favor, and though stringent measures were 
adopted for its abatement they did not avail. Fortunes 
were made and lost in a single day, and many a miner 
who came from the interior to embark for his home, by 
trying to increase his fortune at the gaming table found 
himself penniless and obliged to return to the mines 
and begin all over. 

There were parts of the city where even a policeman 
hardly dared to go, and night was made hideous with 



170 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

debauchery and assaults. During the early years of 
the city's awakening many murders were committed by 
the desperadoes, yet no one was hanged for the crimes, 
and the courts became a byword. The situation was 
intolerable and in 1851 the famous Vigilance Committee 
was organized in the interests of law and order. This 
Committee within a month tried and hanged four men 
and banished thirty others, and the course pursued was 
universally upheld by public opinion. Conditions be- 
came normal and the Committee ceased its labors. 
But in 1856 crime had once more become rampant and 
the law impotent. The Vigilants reorganized and acted 
with the same vigor and with the same results as before, 
and there was again individual security and public 
order. 

The history of San Francisco's beginnings are 
extremely interesting to anyone who visits the city and 
these strange happenings and conditions form a fasci- 
nating background. They were constantly in my mind 
when I was there early in 1906 and added much to the 
significance of what I saw. For a place of its size I 
was surprised to find so much of it built of wood. Of 
course certain fine residences and many of the big 
business blocks were of material more permanent and 
substantial, but even in the commercial heart of the 
town wooden structures were plentiful, while in the 
residence sections redwood dwellings were almost 




A glimpse of the shipping 



Around the Golden Gate 171 

universal. I wondered what would happen if a big 
fire got started, and mentioned this thought to a native. 
He, however, assured me that I need have no appre- 
hension on that score; for they had the finest fire 
department in the world, and no fire could get beyond 
control. 

Another feature of the city that engaged my attention 
was its weather. Someone had told me that, "with its 
rains and fogs and rough winds San Francisco has 
about the meanest climate that ever a man set foot in." 
I suppose there is a modicum of truth in the statement, 
but during my stay the weather was rather fine. If we 
had rain it came at night, and though there was often 
fog and gloom in the early morning the sun presently 
broke through. Then followed a period of dreamy 
calm, but later the wind came blustering in from the 
sea and for much of the afternoon blew with uncom- 
fortable violence. This seemed to be the daily program. 

The city's fame as a seaport drew me early to the 
wharves. Everywhere here for miles were ships loading 
and unloading, and I found toil and din and smoke and 
dubious smells no matter whither I wandered. Against 
the sky was a dense forest of tapering masts with their 
network of rigging, and here and there were stout 
steamer funnels belching soot and fumes. The great 
drays banged and rattled along over the rough pave- 
ments, there was clanking of chains, the panting of 



172 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

engines, the shouts of men. Loafers strolled about or 
roosted on piles of boards and other chance seats, and 
children and sight-seers mingled with the rest of the 
crowds, all drawn by the allurement of the sea-going 
ships and the varied activity. It was a rude region, 
and the business buildings which fronted toward the 
wharves were dingy and forbidding. Saloons were pre- 
dominant, and these endeavored to interest the public 
by the individuality of their names, as for instance, the 
North Pole, the Castle, the Tea Cup, Life Saving 
Station and Thirst Parlor, The Fair Wind, and Jim's 
Place. 

Whatever else the stranger in San Francisco missed 
seeing he was sure to visit the Chinese quarter. Here 
was an oriental community of fifteen thousand in the 
heart of the city. It occupied an area of about ten 
square blocks. No space was wasted, and besides the 
main thoroughfares there were many narrow byways 
running in all directions and Kned with little places of 
business. Often the buildings were curiously orna- 
mented and made resplendent with many-colored paints 
and big paper lanterns, but the majority were battered 
and aged and grimy. 

The first Chinese to arrive in California came on 
the brig Eagle in February, 1848. They were two men 
and one woman. Within the next two years about five 
hundred came, and by 1852 there were eighteen thous- 



Around the Golden Gate 173 

and. Large numbers went direct to the mines where 
they worked for a few cents a day. The enmity aroused 
by their competition in the labor market resulted in 
exclusion laws, and latterly their numbers have been 
decreasing. Naturally, therefore, the racial bitterness 
which the Americans have felt toward the Mongolians 
is somewhat allayed. Yet harsh feeling is still to be 
encountered, and one man enlightened me thus: 

"They ought to be kept out — every one of 'em. Go 
to the farming country and watch how they manage on 
their ranches workin' all the time, night and day, and 
Sundays, rain or shine. A white man has no show 
against them — not a particle. When it comes to dis- 
posing of what he raises, the Chinaman sells every time 
he starts out to make a trade. Ask him the price of a 
bunch of beets. 

" *Five cents,' he says. 

" 'Too much,' you say. 

"He picks up another bunch and says, 'Here, two 
bunches for five cents today;' and you take them. 

"A Chinaman knows how to accumulate the cash. 
He will come into this country with nothing and go 
away with a bag of money as long as your arm. 

"In the city they crowd into the smallest quarters 
and eat the cheapest food. Let them keep coming and 
they would take all the work and absorb all the wealth 
there is here; and we ain't keepin' 'em out either in 



174 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

spite of our laws. One way or another they are con- 
stantly sneaking in. Each Chinaman has to be photo- 
graphed to identify him, but they all took alike, and if 
you catch one of those that have slipped in, he'll show 
a photograph of some other Chiniman, and you can't 
tell but that it is of him. 

"They are a thrifty people and an honest people, I'll 
say that for them. They stand by their bargains and 
always pay when they say they'll pay. I'd rather sell 
goods to a Chinese merchant than an American so far 
as finance goes. Some are millionaires. But they 
don't help develop the country. They don't invest here. 
All their money, sooner or later, goes back to China, 
and it's a big drain. That ain't where we're goin' to 
get hit the worst, though. The Chinese who do us the 
most harm are those that come to look around or to 
study. You see the Chinamen are cracker-jacks to 
imitate. Give 'em the chance and they'd steal all our 
ideas about machinery and how to do things in a modern 
way. Then they'd go back to China and start their 
manufactories, and we wouldn't be in it at all. 

"There's no other race to which there's the same 
objection. Lots of Mexicans come in, and they're kind 
of a mean, treacherous class that don't like us any better 
than we like them; but they're lazy and shiftless, and 
their competition don't count. Then there's Indians. 
I ain't got no objection to them. The fact is they're 




A main thoroughfare i7i Chinatozv7i 



Around the Golden Gate 175 

nearer of kin to us than the Chinese, a good sight. 
The world has only three race divisions. There's the 
Caucasian, the Ethiopian and the Mongolian. The 
Indian ain't a Mongolian, is he .? and he ain't an 
Ethiopian. So he must be a Caucasian." 

I found a few of the Chinatown shops large and fine, 
and the goods in them were often expensive, rare, and 
delightfully original and charming in design. But for 
the most part the shops were small and not by any 
means prepossessing. Usually they had open fronts, 
and much of the stock was displayed on the sidewalk, 
and the walks were also made use of for the conducting 
of many minor industries such as cobbling and tinker- 
ing. I loitered about for hours watching the strange 
scenes. The people with their yellow visages and 
unfamiliar garments looked as if they had been exhumed 
from some prehistoric past. The men mostly wore 
black or dark blue. Often the women wore these colors 
likewise, but a good many had clothing as gay as a 
rainbow, and so did the children. The women went 
about bareheaded and their garments consisted of large 
loose-fitting blouses with huge sleeves and a pair of 
trousers of equally generous proportions. 

The inhabitants included some persons of refinement 
and learning, and a considerable number of keen and 
successful business men; but the larger part were of 
the lower class. This, I suppose, is the reason why the 



176 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

women usually had normal feet; yet once in a while I 
saw one stump along with feet that seemed to be non- 
existent. 

In various places were walls pasted over with hiero- 
glyphic notices and bulletins, nearly all printed on red 
or yellow paper, and the passers often paused to read. 
There was always an absorbed group in front of a 
trinket stand where some colored Japanese battle 
pictures were displayed. No space in the buildings was 
wasted, and the occupants were much given to burrow- 
ing about underground. The filth of the basements 
had formerly been superlative; but of late, by order of 
the city, every cellar had been supplied with a cement 
floor. The shopkeepers seemed very busy, yet some- 
times I would see one taking his ease and smoking his 
long pipe in contemplative peace and satisfaction, or I 
would see a group standing about a table at the back of 
their cavernous little place of business eating with their 
chop-sticks and drinking tea. Every butcher had an 
entire roasted hog hung up from which he cut portions 
as they were wanted. Some of the meat and dried fish 
and vegetables looked very uncanny. I often could not 
tell what the things were, but I did recognize on sale in 
one shop a chicken's feet minus the skin. 

Almost every kind of business was represented in 
Chinatown. They even had a bookstore, and they 
published a daily newspaper. Barbers' shops were 



Around the Golden Gate 177 

numerous, for every man had his head shaved about 
once a w^eek; and when you looked into the tonsorial 
establishment you perhaps saw^ the barber making the 
job thorough by shaving the inside of the subject's ears. 
One very busy alley v^as largely given up to the sale of 
fish. The stores w^ere full of the finny merchandise, 
the narrow^ v^alks v^ere almost covered, and numerous 
great shallow^ baskets spread w^ith fish and crabs and 
clams were put on boxes along the curb at either side of 
the street. 

I went into a joss-house. In the lower room was a 
group of men smoking (and gambling, so I was told). 
Up above was the room of worship, gorgeous, but taw- 
dry. It was crowded with paraphernalia and well 
supplied with wooden images. Near by was a fine 
restaurant occupying an entire building. The furnish- 
ings were very aristocratic, and there was much carving 
and heavy oriental chairs and tables. It w^as run by a 
company of eight men, and their safe in one corner of 
an eating apartment had eight padlocks on it. Each 
partner carried the key to his individual padlock, and 
the safe could only be opened when all were present. 

Another place I visited was the underground shop of 
an "inventor,'' as he called himself. But his inventions 
were more curious than original. They were all rather 
rude mechanisms that did things of no particular use. 
One of the oddest was an arrangement for reading by 



178 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

candlelight. When you were through you let go of 
your book which was hitched to a string from above, 
and it was drawn up out of the way. At the same time 
the candle swung back and an extinguisher dropped 
over it. 

A somewhat sim.ilar subterranean shop was occupied 
by a very old man who had two mimic theatres fastened 
to his wall crowded with actors, one-half life size. 
He would set the mechanism going and the figures 
would bob their heads and move their hands in a most 
unearthly manner. He also had a wonder-stone, a 
polished disc about eighteen inches across and with 
many smoky stains in the rock. The old man pointed 
out in the stains a great number of figures — men, 
women and animals; but it was seldom I would make 
out the things he said he saw. 

There were pawn-shops in Chinatown, and in the 
windows you were sure to see, among other articles, 
several opium pipes. Opium is less used than formerly, 
but opium dens still existed, and I wandered into one 
of them. Its entrance was at the back of a gloomy 
hallway. Within was a large apartment having a 
double tier of platforms at the sides on which were 
heaps of blankets and a few Chinamen sleeping or 
smoking. One ancient was lying on his side and 
toasting a bit of opium on the end of a slender stick 
over a little lamp. Then he crowded it into the orifice 










o 






Around the Golden Gate 179 

of his pipe and puffed away. Another fellow was 
smoking a water-pipe— that is, drawing tobacco fumes 
through a one-inch tube, two feet long, filled with 
water. This individual showed me various small 
trinkets which he said were very cheap because they 
had been smuggled in from abroad by friends. The 
Chinaman is not very particular about obeying laws 
that he can evade. He even holds slaves — for one 
alley was pointed out where, behind barred windows, 
the women slaves of this strange foreign community 
were kept. 

My sojourn in San Francisco came to an end at length, 
and one evening in the early dusk I crossed the bay 
to go on by train to other regions. From the ferry-boat 
I looked back and saw the great city with its masts and 
towers and heights, gray and beautiful against the glow 
of the sunset sky. Lights were everywhere a-twinkle, 
and the beholder could not but be impressed with the 
greatness of the city — populous, rich, serene and 
powerful; and yet, one week later came the great 
earthquake and the fire that reduced this metropohs of 
the west coast to a blackened ruin. 

Note. — The old San Francisco is no more, but the attraction of its 
situation will always remain, and the new tragedy in its stirring history 
adds greatly to the interest of the visitor. At about five o'clock of 
Wednesday morning, April 18, 1906, occurred the first great shock 
of that elemental calamity. It had been a beautiful night, and the 



i8o Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

Post-Lenten fever of society's revels was at its height. That night 
the climax of the Grand Opera season had been reached in a magnifi- 
cent performance, and never before had there been such enthusiasm 
in San Francisco's musical world. The performance was only con- 
cluded at midnight, and then for hours the cafes had been gay with 
the laughter and discussions of the opera-goers. Even at the time of 
the great shock some of the revelers were still in the streets. There 
was a series of shuddering jerks and writhings of the earth, here and 
there a crash of falling walls, then a profound silence for several min- 
utes. After that was heard the clangor of the gong on the cart of the 
fire chief as he dashed through the heart of the city. Broken gas- 
pipes had started fires; but worst of all, beneath the surface of the 
streets the water mains had been severed, and the city was doomed. 
Not until three days later did the conflagration burn itself out. Over 
four square miles of the city were gone utterly, and property to the 
value of more than a third of a billion dollars had been destroyed, 
and the larger portion of the inhabitants were homeless refugees in 
the public parks. 

A new and more substantial city has risen from the ashes, and it 
continues, as before, to be the largest city on the Pacific Coast. It 
is at the north end of a long peninsula. On the west is the ocean and 
on the east is San Francisco Bay, 50 miles long and 10 miles wide. 
The city lies mainly on the shore of the Bay and on the steep hills 
that rise a little back from the water's edge. 

The Golden Gate which gives entrance from the sea to the Bay 
is one mile across. The Presidio, or Government Military Reserva- 
tion, stretches along the Golden Gate for 4 miles. Daily drills of the 
troops stationed there are held from 9 to 1 1 a. m. 

Beyond the Presidio, on the outermost portion of the peninsula 
that borders the Golden Gate, is the popular resort, Sutro Heights 
Park. A great attraction here is the view of the Seal Rocks. These 
rocks are three in number, conical in shape, and from 20 to 50 feet 
high, and only a stone's throw from the land. On them huge sea- 
lions bask in the sun. Some of the creatures weigh over half a ton 
and are from 12 to 15 feet long. They are protected by law, and 



Around the Golden Gate i8i 

scores of them are always hovering about the rocks. Their evolu- 
tions in the water are very interesting, and their singular barking 
can be heard above the roar of the breakers. Near by are swimming 
pools and an aquarium. 

A little to the south is Golden Gate Park with its fine lawns, ser- 
pentine drives, shady walks, gorgeous flowers, and groves of tropical 
or semi-tropical trees, and its wonderful collection of animals and 
birds. 

One of the most interesting historical relics of the city is the old 
Mission Dolores at the corner of Dolores and i6th streets. The 
superstitious believe that it escaped by divine intervention the great 
fire which destroyed so much of the city. It dates from about 1778. 
The adobe walls are three feet thick, it has a tile roof, and the floor 
is of earth except near the altar. Adjoining it is a neglected little 
churchyard. 

The Chinese Quarter has been rebuilt since the fire, and is still 
one of the most fascinating features of the city. It contains about 
10,000 inhabitants, mostly men. 

The San Francisco climate is notably equable, without extremes 
of either cold or heat. Nevertheless, visitors should always have 
warm wraps available, for strong chilling winds from the sea are 
frequent even in summer. 

Beyond the Golden Gate, northward, rises Mt. Tamalpais, 2600 
feet high. A scenic railroad climbs to its summit, whence can be 
had an excellent view of the entire bay region. 

At Berkeley, just across the bay from San Francisco, is the Uni- 
versity of California, with its extensive and picturesque grounds. 
It has over 3,000 students, one-third of whom are women. An 
unusual feature of its equipment is an open-air Greek theater, which 
accommodates 12,000 spectators, and is used for university meet- 
ings, commencement exercises, and concerts. 

Automobile trips can be made from San Francisco in every 
direction. One of the best roads is that to Sacramento, the capital 
of the state, 136 miles distant. Perhaps an even pleasanter way 
to make this trip is to go by steamer up the Sacrajnento River, 



l8ia Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

Orchards and gardens are almost continuous along the banks of 
the stream. 

The motorist going south from San Francisco will find good dirt 
roads in the main, but in places they are very narrow, and have 
some sharp turns and steep grades. Thirty-four miles takes one to 
Palo Alto. The name means tall tree, and the great redwood which 
suggested the name still stands. Stanford University is the great 
attraction at Palo Alto. It has an endowment of ^30,000,000, and 
its buildings in the Mission style of architecture, with long corridors 
and inner courts, are the finest possessed by any university in the 
world. 

Twenty miles farther south, is San Jose in the center of the largest 
compact orchard on the globe, sheltered by the mountains round- 
about from every asperity of land or sea. This is the starting-point 
for Lick Observatory, 26 miles away on Mt. Hamilton. Stages 
make the round trip in a day, allowing an hour's stay on the moun- 
tain. The road is excellent, and the views are beautiful and ever- 
changing. The distance to the summit from the base of the moun- 
tain is only two miles in a direct line, but by the road it is seven 
miles. The road is said to make 365 bends in this upward climb. 
The observatory is one of the most notable in the world in point of 
situation, equipment, and achievement. Its great telescope has a 
36-inch object glass. James Lick, whose gift of ^700,000 built the 
observatory, is buried in the foundation pier of the telescope. 

Continuing the journey southward from Palo Alto, we reach Santa 
Cruz, 91 miles from San Francisco. This is a favorite summer and 
winter resort, with an excellent bathing beach, fine cliffs, and good 
fishing. Six miles distant is a grove of big trees, about 20 of which 
have a diameter of over 10 feet. One of them attains a diameter of 
23 feet. A large hollow tree is shown in which General Fremont 
camped for several days in 1847. 

Somewhat farther down the coast is charming Monterey, the old 
capital of California in the days of Spanish rule. Dana, in his "Two 
Years Before the Mast,'* describing Monterey as it was in 1835, 
before California had become a part of the United States, says: *'It 



Around the Golden Gate l8lb 

makes a very pretty appearance; its houses being of whitewashed 
adobe. The red tiles, too, on the roofs contrast well with the 
white sides. There are no streets nor fences (except that here and 
there a small patch might be fenced in for a garden) so that the 
houses are placed at random. In the center of the place is an 
open square, surrounded by four lines of one-story buildings, with 
half a dozen cannon in the center; some mounted and others not. 
This is the presidio, or fort. Every CaHfornia town has a presi- 
dio in its center; or rather every presidio has a town built around 
it; for the forts were first built by the Mexican government, and 
then the people built near them, for protection." 



IX 

A NEVADA TOWN WITH A PAST 

THE International Hotel where I stopped was a 
big six-story building, imposing in size and in 
many of its appointments, but all gone to seed. 
It had been a very grand affair when it was erected. 
Its broad stairways, its heavy woodwork, its great 
windows with their lace curtains, its black walnut bed- 
steads and marble-topped bureaus, upholstered chairs 
and Brussels carpets all had an air of antique luxury. 
Time was when an apartment cost from two to five 
dollars a night. Now the prices are fifty cents and one 
dollar, and everything is battered and worn, and the 
whole building is almost ghostly in its loneliness, so few 
are the travellers who stop at the once busy hostelry. 
A Chinaman is the landlord, and he goes himself to 
meet the trains and carry his patrons* hand luggage up 
the steep hill to his hotel. The Palace, the Occidental 
and the other fine hotels have fared even worse than 
this one, and the streets are hned with buildings that 
in their day were genuinely impressive and probably 
as fine as any west of the Rockies. 

182 



A Nevada Town with a Past 183 

Virginia City is indeed a strange town-— a living 

skeleton. In the height of its opulence it boasted a 

population of thirty thousand. Today there are less 

than one tenth that many, and dilapidation and ruin 

are seen on every hand. The chief streets terrace 

along a great hillside. Farther up the slope are wastes 

of sagebrush growing in stunted clumps a foot or two 

high and half hiding the earth with their gray twigs 

and foliage. Down below is a valley where the mines 

have dumped vast heaps of waste. The entire region 

is a wild upheaval of hills, and around the horizon are 

seen ranges of snowy-topped mountains. Once in a 

while a gnarled scrub pine or dwarf cedar occurs, but 

only a few feet high. Formerly scrub pines of fair size 

were plentiful on the hills; but they were practically 

all used for firewood long years ago. After they were 

gone some Chinamen ran a woodyard and sold pine 

roots. Probably one hundred and fifty donkeys were 

engaged in toiling about the uplands and bringing in 

the stumps and roots of the old scrub pines. This 

material, too, was exhausted presently, and now the 

fuel comes by train. 

If you look attentively you discover a little grass 
growing in the sagebrush. It gets a foothold about the 
roots of the brush and now and then starts a clump by 
itself. This is bunch-grass. The cattle relish it and 
they nose about after it where you would at first glance 



184 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

think they could find nothing more palatable than the 
bitter sage. As the season advances thousands of sheep 
roam over the country, though the grass is always too 
scanty to make the landscape green. 

In the town are a few poplar trees, and occasionally 
there are fruit trees in the gardens. But gardens are 
scarce and small. There is lack of soil and lack of 
moisture. The streets are rough and dirty, and as I 
walked about I was constantly encountering old tin 
cans and getting my feet tangled up in wires from the 
baled hay. On the main street in the busier portion 
is an almost continuous roofing over the broad side- 
walks, and this serves the stores instead of awnings. 
The walks themselves are of plank that evidently date 
back into the town's ancient history. The knots and 
spikes protrude and the rest is deep hollowed by the 
passing of countless feet. Often streaks of sagebrush 
grow alongside the gutters, and these tenacious shrubs 
establish themselves wherever else in the village there 
are spaces untrodden and uncared for. Buildings in 
good repair are rarities. Those out of plumb are com- 
mon, and some lean against one another for support, 
or are braced by long timbers. There are tottering 
fences and ragged walls and broken roofs and smashed 
glass, and many windows and doors are boarded up. 

As I was rambling through the sagebrush below a 
house on the outskirts an old German came out and 



A Nevada Town with a Past 185 

spoke to me. He was very friendly, and he became 
doubly so when he learned that I was from New Eng- 
land. " Dot New England haf caused me thirty-four 
years of trouble," said he with a humorous twinkle in 
his eyes. " It vas dere I got mine wife. I suppose you 
people back East are thinkin' we haf der world by der 
tail out here. Vm glad of dot. You used not to think 
we vas much. But the West haf been makin' some 
progress dese late years. I think, though, all of us 
here are, you might say, impregnated with minerals, 
and we want to get rich too fast. It would be better 
not to grab so much for ourself. Yes, although bein' of 
a fiery political nature, I want everyone to haf an equal 



share." 



I resumed my walk and a little later stopped to chat 
with a small boy who was on horseback racing around 
a yard. He had an array of bottles and cans full of 
water set on a wall, and he would pick one up, canter 
to some other part of the enclosure and deposit it on 
a post. He said he was playing grocer and was deliver- 
ing goods. I asked for directions to Gold Hill, and he 
slid off his horse and went along to show me the way. 
His name was Chester; " But the boys have got a nick- 
name on me," he confided, "and call me Figs. My 
father works in a mine, but on Sundays he goes 
prospecting." 



1 86 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

The search for gold has resulted in tearing the country 
all to pieces. Everywhere the hills are dotted 
with prospectors' holes. From any height you can see 
dozens — perhaps hundreds. They suggest the burrow- 
ing of woodchucks or prairie dogs. There is always 
quite a heap of dirt and broken rock on the downhill 
side. The region along the Comstock Lode abounds 
too in deserted shafts. Usually the spots where had 
been the buildings, and the machinery for working the 
abandoned mines, are now only marked by immense 
dumps of waste with possibly a few great foundation 
stones and irons. The shafts may be filled up, or they 
may be partially open. Figs pointed to one of these 
holes and said a boy pushed him into it and he had 
slipped and crawled in the darkness a long way. He 
thought he was lost and he cried; but at last he saw day- 
light ahead and he crept out at the bottom of the hill. 

Figs had a mania for throwing stones. He tossed 
them down vacant shafts and heaved them at cows, 
roosters, water-puddles and anything else that happened 
to catch his eye. He evidently did not find life dull. 
"On Saturday," said he, "seven of us kids are goin' to 
the reservoir pond to have a swim. We'll like that — you 
betcher! There's ducks on the pond, and a feller that 
lives near it shoots 'em and lets us have 'em three for a 
quarter. We'll bring some home and have 'em for 
dinner the next day." 




A prospector 



A Nevada Town with a Past 187 

The village of Gold Hill, two miles from Virginia 
City, is deader, if anything, than its neighbor. There 
is the same dilapidation and wreckage, and the same 
canting walls and neglect of repairs. Figs called 
my attention to the church steeple, and said, "That's 
goin' to fall pretty soon. It rocks like a cradle every 
time the wind blows hard." 

On the outskirts of the hamlet I m.et a Scotchman 
who affirmed that his cabin was the oldest dwelling in 
the region. It was built in 1867. The main part 
contained a single room, but there was a leanto at the 
rear and a little cave ran back under the hill. The 
owner invited me in to rest myself and offered me a cup 
of whiskey, or, if I preferred, he would make me a cup 
of tea, coffee or chocolate. When we entered, a gray 
cat departed through a missing window-pane. The 
man said the cat was his pardner; "And I don't want 
any other," he affirmed. "If you have a man living 
with you he is too apt to smoke and drink and read too 
much and not attend to the cabin business. I been 
spendin' a year or two in the new gold region at Tonopah. 
I had to get away from there on account of my health. 
It's a desert country with not enough sagebrush growin' 
to shelter a jack-rabbit, and the water is bad — full of 
borax, soda and alkali. The Tonopah people been 
dyin' like sheep. Some of 'em, when they begin to feel 
sick go to Carson and boil a little of the alkali out of 



1 88 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

their systems in the hot springs that are there. But I 
come here, and the first thing I knew I was in bed with 
the pleurisy. I had it in good shape, and pretty near 
died. The doctor said the cabin needed ventilation 
and he ordered that window-pane broke." 

The cabin was very neat in spite of its small size. 
It was on the warm side of the hill and so was comfort- 
able in winter, while the cavern annex was " as cool as 
an ice house" in the hottest days of summer. In fact, 
I judged that its occupant considered it an ideal resi- 
dence. He was a prospector, and there had been times 
when he had made so much money he didn't know 
what to do with it. Nevertheless he had lost it "twice 
as fast as he made it." 

That evening, at Virginia City, I dropped in at the 
ofBce of the paper on which Mark Twain began his 
literary career as a reporter. There was no one behind 
the counter in the little front room, and I went on into 
the type-setting department — a high, grimy room with 
type-cases along the sides, and walls bedizened with 
big theatre posters. I was made welcome, and I sat 
down by a stove in the middle of the apartment. Two 
or three men were busy at the type, and their friends 
strolled in from time to time to look on, or chat, or warm 
themselves. Among the rest was one of the early 
settlers of the region, and I had a long talk with him. 
He looked as if he had shared the fate of the town. His 



A Nevada Town with a Past 189 

overcoat was greasy and faded, and he hobbled in 
aided by a cane, and his ragged beard was streaked 
with tobacco juice. I asked him how the town appeared 
when he first saw it. 

After Hfting the cover of the stove and spitting into the 
opening, he repHed, "I come here in April, 1861, and I 
found just twenty-nine houses. The most important 
was a small wooden hotel where you paid a dollar a 
night and furnished your own blankets and slept on the 
floor. You had to pay a dollar, too, for a meal and it 
was no better than you get here now for twenty-five 
cents. What I counted as houses were none of them 
anything but shanties. Some of the people were living 
in tents, and some had run back a little drift under a 
hill and stretched over the hollow a green hide for a 
roof. The edges of the hide were made fast by laying 
on rocks. To shut in the front for the night you hung 
up a blanket. These dugouts were common for years. 

"Ore was discovered in this region about three miles 
below by the Grosch brothers in 1858. It was a heavy 
black sulphite and in order to find out its value they 
started over the mountains for San Francisco to have 
some of it assayed. But the cold and the snow were 
too much for them, and one died on the way and the 
other died afterward from the exposure. The ore 
proved to be very rich in silver, and some nephews of 
theirs went back to where it was found. Other pros- 



IQO Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

pectors poked around the neighborhood, too, and in 
1859 two fellers named MuUins and Riley was lookin* 
at the croppings above here on this hill and discovered 
some heavy sort of rock they didn't understand. Corn- 
stock was still farther up the hill, and he see they'd 
found something, and he come and looked at it. He 
knew the ore was valuable and he bluffed 'em into 
givin' him a third right in the discovery. They staked 
out claims and that was the beginning of work here at 
the Comstock Lode. The really productive part of 
the lode is only about a mile long, and in thickness it 
varies from three or four feet to over a hundred. How 
deep it goes no one can say, but it doesn't pinch out 
as most lodes do after going down a short distance. 

"At first there was no very great excitement, but by 
'61 people begun to come in pretty rapid on foot, on 
horseback, and in teams. That next winter was a 
terrible hard one. The snow was so drifted wagons 
couldn't get in with supplies, and wood v/as fifty dollars 
a cord and hay a hundred and fifty dollars a ton, and 
everything else equally expensive. But in the spring 
we had plenty once more. Until the railroad was built 
in 1869 our supplies come on ten and twelve-mule 
teams, and there got to be five lines of six-horse stages 
running into town. The railroad was a great job; for 
it wound around the mountains, and over the hills, 
and through tunnels and all that; but with the wealth 




The ti?iker 



A Nevada Town with a Past 191 

there was here they'd have built a railroad up a tree 
if necessary. 

" People come faster than ever when the railroad was 
done and we had here the biggest mining camp the 
world ever saw. However, it wasn't the prospectors 
who staked out the early claims who made the big 
fortunes. They sold out and traded off and started 
again. I knew Comstock well. He was a man of some 
education, big-hearted and good-natured — a man who 
would never do wrong to anyone except himself An- 
other person very much like Comstock was *01d 
Virginia,' as we called him, the man this town was 
named after. I've seen those two lying on the floor 
under the influence of liquor and the twenty dollar gold 
pieces rolling out of their pockets. 

"In those days everybody had money. I used to 
make five hundred dollars a month myself. Part of it 
I earned as leader of a brass band. There were four of 
us, and we got twenty dollars apiece to play at a ball, 
five dollars apiece at a serenade, and ten dollars each 
at a funeral. The brass band was always at the funerals. 
We played a funeral march on the way to the cemetery, 
a dirge at the grave, and a quickstep comin' back. 

"One of the first times I ever saw Mark Twain was 
at a ball where I was playing. He'd got a little step- 
ladder for a seat, and he kept joggling me as he moved 
it around to get a better sight of the people. So I finally 



192 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

up with my cornet and blew a blast in his ear. He left 
the hall then, and the next day he tried to get even by 
giving me a good hot write-up in his newspaper. But 
we met afterward, and he treated me to a drink and 
things were all right. That was the only time I ever 
saw the color of his money, though I suppose he's 
drank one hundred and fifty dollars worth of whiskey 
at my expense. What he did with the salary he earned 
I can't imagine. I never knew him to gamble nor buy 
mining property. He had plenty of chances to make 
his fortune, but he was afraid to invest five cents. 

"Most of us were pretty easy in money matters. 
If we made a lucky strike we laid off to enjoy ourselves. 
A man might be rich today and dead broke tomorrow. 
You probably have met men about town since youVe 
been here who are fortunate now to earn a living, but 
who have been worth a great many thousands of dollars. 
Comstock died poor. He went to Montana where he 
wound up by putting a six-shooter to his ear, after 
having returned to his tent disappointed in a prospect- 
ing tour. There's thousands and thousands of pros- 
pectors' holes dug that never reveal any sign of good 
ore, and there's lots of mines that are worth nothing 
except to sell to Eastern investors. The chance of out- 
siders making anything in western mines is pretty slim. 
If a mine is a profitable property we prefer to own it 
ourselves, and if we sell stock in such a mine it's usual 



A Nevada Town with a Past 193 

to dig out some of the best ore to show and boom the 
price till weVe disposed of what stock there is for sale. 
Then we work some poor portion of the mine so the 
outsiders think it is worthless and sell back their stock 
at almost nothing. Afterward we get at the richer 
parts again and make money for ourselves. I suppose 
it's likely, if you were to figure up the capital invested 
which fails to be profitable, and the unrewarded labor 
and the other expenses, it has cost more to find and get 
the gold and silver in this Western country than the 
metals mined have been worth. 

"But the possibilities are alluring. To show the 
chances — I knew two fellows from Indiana who rode 
in here on horseback one morning, staked out claims, 
and in the afternoon sold out on the street for three 
thousand dollars apiece. That was more money than 
they'd ever seen where they came from. They thought 
they was rich, and they left for home. Another fellow 
traded an old plug of a horse for an interest in a mine 
and sold out a little later for four hundred thousand 
dollars. Then there was Sandy Bowers. He got hold 
of a claim a few feet wide, and there was a woman had 
a small claim joining his. They got married, and 
pretty soon it was found their claims covered a little 
mountain of gold. It was in the hollow above the village 
of Gold Hill, and that was what gave the place its name. 
The gold was taken out and Sandy sold his interest, 



194 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

and was immensely rich. In order to enjoy his wealth 
he built himself a mansion about twenty miles from 
here over in the Washoe Valley — country where it is 
about as bare of everything but sagebrush as it is 
around Virginia City, and he became known as the 
'Sagebrush Crcesus.' He spared no expense in putting 
up his house, and it was of cut stone and cost half a 
miUion. The door-knobs and hinges were of solid silver, 
and there was everything else to match. Most of the 
furniture he imported from Europe because there wasn't 
any fine enough to be had on this side of the Atlantic. 
They had a ten thousand dollar library, though neither 
Sandy nor his wife could read or write; but the bindings 
looked well. They bought an expensive piano, though 
they knew no more about music than a pig does. Of 
course they had to have what they called statuary, 
even if it was made of plaster-of-Paris. Whoever sold 
them the stuff didn't lose anything. When they opened 
up their house they had a big feast and invited all their 
friends, and the oysters that was served were from 
Philadelphia and cost a dollar and a half apiece. 

"For a time they lived in grand style, as nearly as 
they could copy it; but they speculated in stocks and 
lost all they had. Sandy died, and was so poor at the 
time he hadn't the money to buy a single silver hinge 
of his fine mansion. His wife became a fortune-teller 
in San Francisco, and was called *the Washoe Seeress.' 



A Nevada Town with a Past 195 

"It's astonishing, the wealth that's been taken from 
this little strip of rough country here. One shaft alone 
has yielded two hundred and seventy millions. The 
men that got the bulk of the money from that hole were 
what we speak of as* The Big Four' — Flood and O'Brien 
and Fair and Mackey. The first two were saloon- 
keepers in San Francisco, and the others worked up 
here at the mines. They just happened to invest in the 
right thing, and they hung on. Why, I remember when 
Mackey was getting three dollars and a half a day 
while I was getting four. 

"Very little of the fortunes that have been made in 
the Comstock have been spent in the state of Nevada. 
The millionaires prefer to live in San Francisco or 
New York or Europe. Nevada furnishes the money, 
but is left poor. However, for the first few years this 
town was full of wealth. There was gamblers here 
that had two or three hundred thousand at a time, and 
if a church was to be built, or other public work to be 
done they were the heaviest contributors. They made 
their money easier than anybody else, and they gave 
more freely. But money doesn't stay with a gambler. 
If he lives long enough he ends in poverty. 

"For some years there was considerable lawlessness, 
and the fellow who could draw his pistol first was the 
best man. But, as a whole, this was a good place to live 
in then — always lots goin' on and the streets so crowded 



196 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

nights you could hardly get along. Everything was 
prosperous and promising when in October, 1875, 
about five o'clock one morning a gentleman threw a 
lighted lamp at a woman he had some difference with 
and unluckily missed his aim and set the house on fire. 
A gale was blowing and that fire swept right through 
the town and burned all the business section and three- 
fourths of the homes, and the churches and millions of 
feet of heavy timber to be used in bracing the walls of 
the mines when the ore was taken out. The people in 
the burned district had about all they wanted to do to 
escape with what they had on, and very little was saved. 
For a while no sort of adequate shelter could be had 
for most of the homeless, and many families would just 
stretch blankets over the sagebrush and crawl under. 
We went to work at once to rebuild, and forty-five 
trains a day came in from Carson bringing grub and 
supplies. But the city was never the same afterward. 
The buildings were thrown up in a hurry, and they 
don't stand the test of time. Pretty soon the town began 
to dwindle down, and a good many of the mines were 
abandoned. As they got deeper they became more 
difficult to work, and there was serious trouble with 
hot water in them, and, besides, the price of silver had 
dropped. A few mines are still in operation and are 
adding to their owners' wealth, and there is some 
prospect that things may be brighter in the future; but 
Virginia City will never again be what it was." 




Making firewood of the sagebrush 



A Nevada Town with a Past 197 

When I left the old mining camp I went to Carson, the 
capital of the state. The place is on the level floor of a 
wide valley and looks like a country village. There is 
some moisture here and with the help of irrigation the 
place is an oasis amid the almost interminable barrens 
of sagebrush round about. The inhabitants number 
somewhat over two thousand, and there is a long main 
street of small stores, hotels and saloons, back of which 
are other streets lined with residences, mostly a story 
or a story and a half high; but the houses have fruit 
trees and green grass about them, and the streets are 
lined with Lombardy poplars which guard the public 
ways like arboreal sentinels standing in martial array, 
shoulder to shoulder. 

Everyone talked mines and ore, and of fortunes 
made and lost. Such talk was especially rife at the time 
of my visit because there were reports of a great dis- 
covery twenty-five miles distant, where two brothers 
by the name of Ramsey had been prospecting for over 
a year. We understood that they had found some 
wonderful ledges which assayed as much as twelve 
thousand dollars a ton. With the first rumors men 
from all the region around started for the new El Dorado. 
It was even said that one of the railroad trains had been 
deserted by its crew who stampeded to the gold fields. 
The spot was a canyon off in the desert, and whoever 
went had to carry supplies for himself and horses. 



198 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

Teams were in great demand and every sort of a vehicle 
was pressed into use to convey prospectors and their 
outfits to the land of promise. A two-horse rig could not 
be had for less than eight dollars a day. Two old 
prospectors who went out from Carson told me of their 
experiences. They started in the afternoon driving a 
span hitched to a buggy. They had only a general 
idea of the direction, but travelled on through the sage- 
brush till dark when they camped. At daybreak they 
were on the road again, and now they had plenty of 
company. Other rigs and bunches of horsemen and 
men on foot were constantly in sight trailing along the 
valleys and over the hills, all in a rush to reach the gold 
region in time to pick up some choice location. When 
they got to the camp they found it consisted of a half 
dozen tents and about twenty wagons. They lost no 
time in asking about the ore which was half gold; but 
they failed to get any very exact information. The 
Ramseys had nothing to say, and of all the men who 
were tramping the hills and posting location notices, 
not one had seen a pound of pay ore of any description. 
It was known however that the Ramsey brothers had 
staked seventy-four claims. Some fellows of wide ex- 
perience said the region resembled Tonopah, Goldfield, 
and all other mining camps they had ever visited. But 
one man said it looked like hell with the fire out. 

The two prospectors tramped about forty miles that 
day without discovering anything promising. Toward 



A Nevada Town with a Past 199 

evening they returned to their outfit and camped in a 
gulch near a tiny rivulet, built a fire of sagebrush, made 
coffee and were happy. For company they had about 
three hundred other gold-seekers and the narrow gulch 
was crowded full. A saloon man had arrived in the 
afternoon with several cases of whiskey, and the bottles 
had been promptly bought at his own price. The whis- 
key increased the hilarity, and some of the lads around 
the evening camp fires celebrated by firing off their 
pistols into the air. Finally everybody retired to rest 
and quiet reigned; but about midnight a number of the 
horses got loose and there was chasing around barefoot 
to catch them. 

At dawn the camp began to bestir itself, and the 
two old prospectors were careful to secure an early 
supply of water from the rivulet. They were none too 
soon; for each man as he awoke would go and scrub 
and dip water and lead his horses to drink, and condi- 
tions in the brook soom became very bad. That was 
the only available source of supply, and the flavor of 
soapsuds and mud did not improve it for coffee. Our 
prospectors did not see much to be gained by staying 
longer, and they staked out a couple of claims at 
random and returned to town. If the excitement 
proved well founded they still had a chance for wealth. 
If it did not, they would be at no further expense. 
Lacking new developments the camp was sure to 



200 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

dwindle very rapidly. Thus far, in its three days of 
notoriety, probably five thousand dollars had been 
spent by the prospectors who rushed to the canyon, 
while not five cents worth of ore had been brought away. 

Round about Carson, at intervals in the valleys, were 
groups of ranch buildings, usually sheltered by a little 
grove of cottonwoods. The cottonwoods were to some 
degree a source of fuel supply and were every few years 
cut back and allowed to grow out again. However, 
most of the wood that was burned seemed to be the 
sagebrush. It looked like poor stuff, but I was assured 
it made a hot fire. The stems were sometimes as large 
as one's arm, though soon dividing into a brush of 
twigs, and the bushes were seldom over three or four 
feet high. If the farmers went back into the mountains 
they could get scrub pine; but they would do this only 
to sell it in the town where it was worth nine dollars a 
cord. 

In both Virginia City and Carson, Indians were 
frequently seen on the streets; but they seldom appeared 
to have any very definite business there. It was as if 
they had come to dream amid a civilization they could 
not comprehend. Sometimes several would sit in the 
sunshine on the curbing and stay purposeless a long 
time, or a dozen or more might gather in a waste lot, 
some sitting, some lying down, some standing waiting 
in a seemingly vacant-minded way till the inclination 



A Nevada Town with a Past ^01 

came to go elsewhere. The men's garments were 
modern, and so were the women's gowns; but the 
feminine portion of the race, both old and young, 
delighted in gay shawls, and in bright colored kerchiefs 
which they wore over their heads. The women were 
fat and stumpy and moved along with an awkward 
waddle. Sometimes one would have a papoose on her 
back, strapped to a board that had a hood-hke projec- 
tion above, from beneath which the little one looked 
out, silent and watchful. 

On the outskirts of Carson amid the sagebrush I 
happened on a little Indian village of a half dozen 
families. I approached one of the houses — a low, rude 
shanty, and suddenly a dog made a rush and grabbed 
me by the leg. I kicked, and a small Indian boy came 
and drove the cur around the house with a switch. 
Near the dweUing was an open-sided shed just large 
enough to shelter the wagon which was underneath. 
Every Indian family in the region aspired to own a 
wagon. They usually bought one second-hand at a 
cost of from fifteen to twenty-five dollars, and they 
took better care of it than of any of their other belong- 
ings. A wagon shed is perhaps exceptional, but they 
at least cover it from the sun and rain with sacking. 

Except for the shanty I have mentioned, the habita- 
tions of the village were wigwams — conical frame- 
works of sticks covered with canvas. The cabin had a 



202 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

floor and a stove; but in the wigwams the fire was made 
in the center on the ground, and the smoke escaped 
through a hole in the peak. Of course, a good deal of 
smoke lingers inside, and as a result the older Indians, 
especially the squaws, are apt to be blind. Not far 
from each dwelling was a half circle made by heaping 
up sagebrush in a thick hedge. This served as a wind 
break, and within its shelter the squaws like to sit and 
weave their baskets and do other work. 

A half mile distant was a deserted camp, and for 
many rods about, the earth was strewn with boards and 
sticks, broken crockery, tin cans, bottles, pieces of 
carpeting, pots, pails and baskets and broken tools, 
and there were shoes galore, the ruins of a mattress and 
various articles of clothing. One or two of the wigwams 
were nearly complete. A man who lived in the vicinity 
told me that the camp had been abandoned on account 
of the death of a squaw. "You see," said he, "they 
think that the squaw's spirit will be comin' back and 
kickin' things over, and they always move every time 
anyone dies. They'll even leave a good wooden house. 
Often they go only a short distance, but they wouldn't 
stay in the same place. It seems to be their idea that 
the spirit will only harbor around within a few feet or 
rods of the hut where the person died. 

"The Indians are queer in a good many ways. 
They don't like to have their photographs taken, and 



A Nevada Town with a Past 20? 

if a person comes near their homes with a camera they 
will go into the hut and shut the door, and they won't 
poke their heads out till the photographer goes away. 
Their notion is that the person who gets their picture 
has power to make them do whatever he pleases. They 
believe he could cause their death, if he chose to. 
There's a man in Carson got a picture of a papoose, 
and the child died. He da'sn't let the Indians know 
he has that picture. The squaw mother would kill him. 
"They used to think that the white man's medicine 
would be fatal to 'em; and they still depend to some 
extent on their own superstitious methods of healing. 
A young squaw here lately had the pneumonia. My 
wife went and see her and said she was pretty badly off. 
But the medicine man come and give her some boiled 
herbs, and the Indians was there from miles around. 
They stayed all night and had a devil of a powwow, 
crying and hollering to keep the squaw's soul from 
takin' flight, and I'll be darned if she didn't get well. 

"When a white man lies down to sleep he always 
covers his feet and keeps his head out; but, do you 
know, an Indian does just the opposite. He covers his 
head every time. If he has only a small piece of blanket 
his head will be wound up in it, even if all the rest of 
his body is exposed." 

I mentioned to the man my experience with the 
Indian dog, and he remarked, "Well, there's no serious 



204 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

harm done. None of the dogs out here ever have hydro- 
phobia. We don't know what hydrophobia is. Why, 
one of our women was East once, and she was walking 
on a town street when she heard a great racket, and a 
man shouted to her there was a mad dog comin'. 
^What's he mad about ^ she says. 

"The Indians use acorns for food a good deal. They 
lay in a store of them in the fall, and every few days 
they shell some and hammer the kernels on a flat rock 
into a kind of meal. Then they make a low, level- 
topped heap of dirt, two feet across with a rim around 
the edge, lay over it a piece of cheese cloth and on that 
put the acorn meal and stick a little bunch of cedar up 
in the middle. Meanwhile they've got some water 
boiling and they pour it on. It takes the bitterness out 
of the nuts, and the cedar gives the meal a flavor that 
they like. That done they boil the meal for a time and 
then dip out the dough, a big spoonful at a time, and 
drop it into a dish of hot grease. They gave my wife 
one of these acorn doughnuts, but I couldn't get up the 
appetite to taste it myself. 

" The women help in the town at housework. They're 
not very steady and come and go as they please. The 
men do better. If you pay them regularly and don't 
scold them they're pretty faithful. But they won't 
contract to stay with you, and if the notion takes them 
to go off a week fishing, they go. The amount they'll 



A Nevada Town with a Past 205 

do in a day compares very favorably with what any 
other class of laborers would accomplish. By gosh! 
when they work, they work, and I doubt, for instance, 
if there's many white men can hook out potatoes as 
fast as they do. 

"They always camp where sagebrush is plenty, but 
they don't seem to care how far they have to pack water. 
The Indians earn considerable money, and the young 
fellows all wear good clothes. Most of the men like to 
gamble, but they do it principally among themselves, 
and as a rule they put what they earn to good use. 
However, they are wasteful in not takin' care of what 
they have. Furniture and household goods of all sorts 
they leave around wherever it happens to suit them, and 
the things get rained on, or dried up with the sun or 
spoiled in some other manner and then are thrown away. 
They are more particular to protect their wagons than 
anything else — at least while the red paint lasts. That 
is because it is not easy to accumulate the cash to replace 
one. The wagons are chiefly useful in going back into 
the hills after pine-nuts and acorns." 

The Indians bring large quantities of the pine-nuts 
to market, and the nuts are eaten around nearly every 
fireside in the region where they grow. The seeds are 
about a half inch long and a quarter inch in diameter, 
and the shells are thin so that they can easily be crushed 
in the fingers. In taste the kernels are sweet and 



2o6 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

pleasing, and not only does the human race enjoy them, 
but they are devoured by dogs, horses and birds. The 
trees are the most important food trees in the Sierras 
and they supply the ranches with much of their fuel 
and fence posts. They seldom grow more than fifteen 
or twenty feet high, and they have no inclination to 
symmetry, but throw out crooked and divergent 
branches. The trunk of a full-grown tree is about a 
foot through. They occur scatteringly in bushy patches 
from the margin of the sage plains to an elevation of 
about eight thousand feet. No slope is too rough and 
none too dry for the nut pine, and it is the predominant 
tree over a vast territory. Tens of thousands of acres 
are found in continuous belts. Seen from a distance the 
trees darken the land where they grow, yet a closer 
view shows that they never form crowded groves, cast 
little shade, and their forest has none of the damp leafy 
glens and hollows so characteristic of other pine woods. 
When the brown nutritious seeds are ripe the Indian 
women who have been out at service among the settlers 
washing and drudging, assemble at the family huts, 
and so do the men who have been working on the 
ranches. Then they make ready the long beating poles, 
and such bags and baskets as they can procure and all 
start gleefully for the nut lands. As soon as they get 
into the vicinity of the trees they select a spot where 
water and grass are found and camp. That done the 



A Nevada Town with a Past 207 

children run up the ridges to the forest, and the men 
laden with poles, and the women with baskets, follow. 
The beating begins and the cones fly in all directions 
among the rocks and sagebrush. Once in a while a 
man will climb a tree and cut off the more fruitful 
branches with a hatchet. The squaws gather the cones 
and build fires by which they roast them until the scales 
open sufl&ciently to allow the seeds to be shaken out. 
The nut gatherers get much bedraggled with the soft 
resin of the pines, but this does not trouble them in the 
least. In the evening, assembled about their camp fires, 
all chattering and feasting on the nuts, they are espe- 
cially happy. 

Here was a bit of hfe truly idyllic, and it seemed to 
me nothing in the feverish delving for fortunes in the 
earth was half so charming. 

Note. — To Eastern eyes, the Nevada country, as soon as you get 
away from the wooded mountains, is desolate in the extreme; but its 
very desolation is one of the things that makes it interesting by way 
of contrast. Virginia City and Gold Hill, however, have a magic 
past that makes them quite fascinating entirely independent of their 
surroundings. Then there is Carson — which is a real curiosity, it is 
such a half-wild and tiny hamlet for a state capital. These places are 
not far aside from one of the main routes across the continent and 
well repay a visit. For those who have time it is to be recommended 
that they keep on southerly to the new mining regions in the Goldfield 
and Tonopah country. Here is life ip the rough and men with the 



2o8 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

bark on, and much is to be seen of humanity and nature in this dis- 
trict that is a revelation to the average traveller. 

Easier of access, and with another sort of attraction is Lake Tahoe 
on the dividing line between Nevada and California. It is only a 
fifteen-mile ride on a narrow-gauge road from Truckee on the main 
line. At the end of this ride you find the best of hotel accommoda- 
tions, and a wilderness lake some twenty miles long and twelve 
broad surrounded by forests and snow-capped mountains. The lake 
is more than six thousand feet above the sea level, and is marvel- 
ously deep and crystal clear. There are many lesser lakes in the 
vicinity and foaming cascades, and good hunting and fishing. The 
region is at its best in the late summer and autumn. One can judge 
of the virtues of the lake from the fact that Mark Twain, who spent 
some time on its shores, says, "Three months of camp life on Lake 
Tahoe would restore an Egyptian mummy to his pristine vigor and 
give him an appetite like an alligator." 

Captain Dick, an eccentric old English sailor, chose this wild 
mountain retreat for his home, built a cabin, and chiseled out a tomb 
in the solid rock on a lonely rock-bound island. But he fell out of his 
boat, while intoxicated, and the lake, which is said never to yield up 
its dead, became his last resting-place. 

Automobiles have done good service in the Nevada deserts, and 
are used in many places on regular stage routes. There is a motor 
route across the state from Utah into California, and branches from 
this in several directions. On the more important routes there is 
nothing to seriously trouble a traveller in good weather, but some- 
times washouts are encountered, and the going is rough where alkali 
is found. Lake Tahoe can be visited by motorists either from the 
north by way of the quaint mountain town of Truckee, or the jour- 
ney can be made from Carson City around the south and east side 
of the lake. 

Nebraska is known as the "Sagebrush State,'* and in general I 
suppose it merits the name, but when one reaches the vicinity of the 
famous divorce town of Reno the wildness of the country disappears, 
and the landscape is distinctly pastoral and agricultural, 










-^ 



-Si 



X 



AMONG THE SHASTA FOOTHILLS 

IT WAS eleven o'clock at night, and I had just 
stopped off at a little railway station in Northern 
California. The station was not lighted and when 
the train rumbled away I was left blinking in the un- 
certain darkness. I looked this way and that for some 
sign of habitation and saw none. Looming against 
the northern sky rose a grim black peak, an 
almost perfect pyramid, strangely regular and vast and 
near. In the east rose another pyramid mountain 
mass, ghostly white with eternal snows. That I knew 
was Shasta. I began exploring the lonely void around 
and presently discovered a man with a lantern on the 
other side of the station. This man was good enough 
to act as my guide, and he piloted me across the road to 
a story-and-a-half hotel hidden among some trees. 
Then he went his way. The building was dark and 
silent. I stepped up on the piazza and after rapping 
again and again without avail reinforced my blows 
with shouts of "Hello!" 



209 



2IO Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

At length a woman's voice responded, and presently 
the lady of the house appeared with a candle. She 
said she had no accommodations left except a cot bed; 
but as her hotel was the only one in the hamlet, a cot 
bed seemed to me a very satisfactory solution of my 
difficulties. She gave me the candle, and I climbed a 
narrow stairway into a garret — a little, rough-boarded 
apartment with a closed deal door at either end and a 
rude railing around the stairway-opening in the middle. 
A stand and a chair were in one corner, and in each of 
the other corners was a cot bed. Two of the beds were 
already occupied. The other was mine. There were 
no windows and no provision for ventilation, and after 
I blew out the candle the room was as dark as a pocket. 
Downstairs I could hear a clock solemnly ticking. One 
of my fellow-roomers was snoring uneasily, and the other 
would now and then talk in his sleep. But at last all 
this faded out of my consciousness, and when I awoke 
there were glints of light coming in at sundry cracks 
and knot holes in the partitions that separated the 
garret I was in from the apartments adjoining at either 
end. The occupants of these rooms were astir, and one 
at a time, two from each chamber, they entered my 
room and passed down the stairway. 

My fellow-roomers now rose, and one of them, as he 
dressed, lit and smoked a cigaret. To wash we were 
obliged to go down to the back porch, where on a bench 



Among the Shasta Foothills 2il 

was a basin with a pail beside it from which to dip the 
necessary water. From this little porch we had the 
mighty form of Shasta in full view, marvelous in the 
height of its aspiring pinnacles and in the unsullied 
whiteness with which the snows clothed its wild crags. 
The woodland darkened its base, but the trees gradually 
frayed out and ceased long before they reached the 
summit. 

We could also look forth from the porch on that near 
and frowning peak of gloom I had seen the night 
before. From bottom to top it was little else than 
barren rock and loose slides of stone. "It's called 
Black Butte,'' said the hired girl, "and I've been told 
it's infested with rattlesnakes, and that the rocks are 
all wore slick with the snakes comin' and goin'. It's 
a fine place for 'em all right, and people say if you go to 
the mountain just about sun-up you can see the rattle- 
snakes pokin' up their heads all around." 

"Well," said the landlady, "I know that knoll on 
the east side of Black Butte is a regular rattlesnake 
den. I had a boarder once named Chapman, and 
he had a perfect mania for catchin' rattlesnakes. 
He was really luny about it, and he went after 'em every 
Sunday. I've never dumb up there, but I've seen the 
snakes' tracks crossin' the road down below. He'd 
catch 'em alive and ship 'em off and sell 'em." 



212 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

" It's said that if you get a good fat rattlesnake and 
try out the oil, that oil is a wonderful cure for rheuma- 
tism," remarked one of the lodgers. "You rub it on 
and take it internally, both." 

"I'm not scared of snakes," declared the hired girl, 
gazing meditatively at the dark stony height. "I'd 
just as soon tackle 'em as not; but I don't want any- 
thing to do with a mouse. Mice are creatures I can't 
stand. I can dance for a week if I see a mouse runnin' 
around the room. Yes, you bet I can!" 

"I ain't stuck on seein' mice or snakes either," said 
the landlady; "but I think the varmints back on 
Shasta are worse than the snakes." 

Then she told how, occasionally, a brown bear was 
captured and wildcats shot, and how right there at 
the hotel they sometimes would hear a California lion 
roar, or the coyotes yelping. In the midst of her 
observations she came to a sudden stop and chased out 
an old hen that had walked into the house and was 
looking around. "That there hen has got to change 
its habits!" she announced. "For two days it has laid 
an egg on my bed, and I won't have such doin's." 

The hens were laying very well, at present, she said, 
only they often stole nests off in the manzanita shrubs 
and thorny "sticker-bushes" where she could not find 
the eggs. 




The' •iCt'll ill tlw hack dour 



Among the Shasta Foothills 213 

The place where I was stopping was a woodland mill 
village clustering about some big red box-factory 
buildings with their piles of boards. Some of the 
houses were substantial cottages, but most were little 
shacks of unplaned boards that in themselves and in 
their surroundings were extremely unprepossessing. 
Their occupants were mostly "Eye-talians.'' There 
were no gardens, no green grass — only ragged forest of 
brush and stumps and brown gritty earth. All the 
vicinity had been cleared of its good timber. 

One odd feature of the village was its ovens. Under 
a shed adjoining nearly every house was a plank plat- 
form on which was built a dome-like cavern of stones 
and cement. In this a fire is made, and when it has 
burned down to embers it is raked out, and the loaves 
of bread are put in and the opening closed. The heat 
the oven has absorbed from the fire does the baking. 

In my walks I often heard the weird honking of wild 
geese, and when I turned my eyes upward I would see 
a flock of the great birds with outstretched necks 
winging their swift way northward. Sometimes there 
would be no more than a dozen, and again there would 
be scores. They flew in a more or less V-shaped forma- 
tion, and it was an inspiring sight to see them ploughing 
along the blue field of heaven. Frequently two or 
three flocks were in sight at the same time. 



214 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

About a mile down the valley, not far from the road, 
was a pleasant green hollow where some cows were 
pastured, and through the glen flowed a crystal-clear 
brook. The brook burst forth full-fledged from a 
bountiful spring, and in the pellucid depths of the pools 
near this spring, one could get glimpses of lurking 
trout. Close by the stream was a cluster of pines, and 
one day as I was passing I noticed among the trees two 
men who had a little fire. I went into the grove and 
joined them. They spoke of themselves as "bums," 
or "hoboes," but affirmed that they were not tramps. 
"A tramp," they explained, "never works, but a hobo 
is a man who travels on the road and does work when 
he can find a job." 

They even entered on a learned disquisition as to the 
origin of the word hobo; for they were men of intelli- 
gence and some education. They had "travelled from 
A to Z" in every state of the Union, and one of them 
said, "There's very few has more knowledge of places 
and routes than I have. I could pass a better civil 
service examination than any mail agent on this rail- 
road that goes through here." 

They had bunked in a box car that had a little straw 
in it the night previous. The sun had warmed the car 
so it retained its heat till about midnight, but after that 
it became so cold the hoboes crawled out and went 
down the railroad and built a fire. "Yes, there are 



Among the Shasta Foothills 215 

discomforts," they said, "and yet this is a very healthy 
life, and we never have any trouble with our stomachs 
or our lungs. A sick man couldn't do better than to 
find a good pard, take along a little money and start 
out on the road." 

The men seemed very leisurely. In fact, "a tramp 
doesn't care whether he gets to town this week or next. 
He knows the town will be there when he arrives." 

My companions spoke of the grove they were in as 
the " Hoboes' Jungle," and said that men of their sort 
were there nearly every day. They had several paper 
bags and parcels of provisions and were preparing 
dinner. The younger man acted as chef, and the older 
said, "I never was much of a jungle cook, but I can 
wash the dishes and get the firewood." 

Dishes were plenty, such as they were. There were 
tin cans and pails in great variety, and there was a 
stew-pan, a frying-pan and a large pot and a number of 
iow, panlike dishes the hoboes had themselves shaped 
out of pieces of tin. The frequenters of this jungle 
never washed their pots and pans after they finished a 
feast, but left that job for the next men. The older of 
the two bums took the pot, and with a rag and some 
sand gave the inside a thorough scouring. Then he 
washed it at the stream side and plugged up a hole with 
a bit of wood. He brought it full of water to his comrade 
who was paring potatoes. Afterward he returned to the 



2i6 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

brook with several other cans and pails which he also 
cleansed and put in order. One of them he filled from 
the stream and set on the fire to boil for the coffee. Last 
of all he went into the neighboring woods and gathered 
an armful of fallen branches, broke them up and 
adjusted the pieces on a rough circle of stones that 
served for a fireplace. 

"Now," said the cook, "we want some ladles.'' 
"All right," responded the other, "I never seen the 
time when I couldn't jump into the bush and make a 
set of kitchen tools in about fifteen minutes, if I was 
real hungry." 

He got out his jackknife, selected some pieces of 
wood that suited his purpose, and soon had fashioned 
two rough paddles. Besides the potatoes, or "spuds" 
as they called them, the cook prepared two large onions 
and fried a good-sized piece of steak. He had some 
little packages of salt and pepper which he drew on for 
flavoring. The work was done with a good deal of 
deftness, but it took considerable time. However, he 
said that preparing the food was not nearly so much of 
a task as getting it in the first place. 

"What'U you have for a plate .^" asked the cook, 
turning to his pard. 

"Here's a flat tin dish that'll do," replied the older 
man, "only I must burn it out first." 




Hoboes getting dinner 



Among the Shasta Foothills 217 

When everything was ready the cook put half the 
great mess of potatoes and onions into the burned-out 
dish, together with half the steak, while he reserved his 
share in the frying-pan. Then a loaf of bread was 
taken out of a parcel and the two sat down on some 
oil-cans turned bottom upward and ate in great con- 
tentment. 

"This is a pretty spot,'* observed the older man, 
"and I always do like to eat where I can hear the sound 
of running water." 

They did not pause till the last morsel was gone, and 
I imagine it was the only square meal they had that 
day. After it was done, one got out his pipe and the 
other his chewing tobacco. They had some thought of 
applying for work in the local mills. If they decided 
to go on to other regions they would travel by train. 
Often they were permitted to ride on a freight train 
in return for helping the train crew with their work. If 
permission was refused they stowed themselves away 
comewhere, in or about the cars. Very likely they 
would get put off. Usually this was done at some stop 
the train made, and the hobo then spoke of himself as 
"being ditched." Occasionally the train men would 
push a hobo oflp while the train was going, and in the 
hobo's phraseology he then "hit the grit." At times 
they sneaked a ride on a passenger coach — perhaps up 
on top or on the platform of the "blind baggage" 



2i8 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

coach next to the tender, or perhaps rode seated on 
the trucks down beneath the cars. "It ain't a bad 
place under there," declared the older man, "when the 
dust don't fly too bad, and Tve seen trains carryin' 
more passengers on the trucks than was in the coaches." 

"I told you Vd been to every state in the Union," 
said the younger man. "Besides that I've been to 
Honolulu and to Mexico. Mexico is called the land 
of tomorrow. It's the motto of that country never to 
do today what you can put off till the next day, and 
California is just the same. That's the effect of the 
climate, I suppose, and I won't dispute but what the 
climate is fine. However, if you want a hobo tourist's 
idea of California, I'd say that this state is nine-tenths 
climate and one-tenth business. The hobo that wants 
to come to a starvation country had better come here. 
Instead of eating three meals a day he gets only one 
meal in three days. They call this God's country, but 
I tell you the devil has the whole thing in hand. 

"When I came out here as a young man affairs went 
well with me for a time and I got to own two good 
ranches. Yes, I made barrels of money. Then come 
a dry year and everything run behind. My stock was 
starving and I shot forty of my horses to put 'em out 
of misery. Others I sold to a rich ranchman at a dollar 
a head. The best of 'em he shipped to Nevada to 
graze, and the rest he killed and fed to his hogs. In 



Among the Shasta Foothills 219 

addition to losing by the drouth I speculated in mining 
stocks and kept sending good money after bad till I 
lost all I had. 

"This state is overrated. People back East hear 
about the fruit and the sunshine and the flowers the 
year around, and the railroads advertise, and the land 
sharks tell how this is the finest spot on earth to really 
enjoy livin', and that when a person dies here he gets 
a ticket right from this glorious climate straight up into 
heaven with no change of cars. Lots of Eastern people 
believe this is all as represented. A family comes early in 
the year from the snows and frosts of their home winter. 
Here things are green, and the real estate agent knows 
the new-comers are green too. He shows 'em a place, 
and says, *Now this is a nice ranch, and you can raise 
anything in the world on it. The price is so and so. 
We're almost giving it away, as it were, but we want 
intelligent liberal people of your class to settle here.' 

"The man's wife, she looks around, and she says, 
*Just see the sunshine, and the oranges, and all those 
roses. I guess we'd better have it.' 

"So the man buys. But in a year or two there's a 
change in his sentiments, and the wife ain't quite satis- 
fied. She gets to longin' for the East, and she speaks 
to her husband and tells him things don't seem to be 
just as they was represented. That's what he thinks, 
too, and he's ready to do whatever he can to please her; 



220 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

so he goes to the agent he bought of and says he wants 
to sell. 

" *Why, it's foolish to do that," the agent says. 
"Prices have dropped and at present you'd lose/ 

"But the man wants to quit, and the agent makes 
him an offer. *The way things are now,' he says, 
* that's the best I can do.' 

"The man sells and goes back East where he come 
from a few thousand dollars poorer than when he left. 
The neighbors ask how it happens he didn't stay, and 
he tells 'em, *They don't have snow out there, and that's 
about the only unpleasant feature they lack.' 

"You talk up California to any people in the East 
who have lived out here and they'll run you off the 
place. Irrigation is the only salvation for this West 
Coast land; and, by the way, did you ever notice how 
the natives spit to help out the work of the streams .? 
I chew tobacco myself, but I ain't a savage. The tobacco 
users in this country act as if they owned the air, and 
the floors of public buildings and railroad cars, not to 
mention the earth. They are irrigating all the time 
wherever they are, indoors and out, till a decent man 
is disgusted. 

"They say it is dreadful easy to make a livin' in the 
fruit business, but I tell 'em I ain't seen anyone knockin' 
oranges out of the trees with a gold brick — no, not a 
single instance of that kind. It's claimed that the San 



Among the Shasta Foothills 221 

Joaquin Valley is one of the most fertile valleys in the 
world, and so it is in spots. But watch out for the hard- 
pan. That is the great backfall in this country. Often 
the soil lies so thin on top of it that it's just about 
worthless. Horned toads wouldn't live on it. But the 
people in this country are what you call flimflammers, 
or, in other words, four-flushers. They lay off that 
hardpan desert into fruit ranches and induce people to 
leave their happy homes in the East to settle on it. A 
Californian expects you to give him all the money 
youVe got and thank him for taking it. He sticks you 
with that land, and you build a shanty on it and put up 
a windmill and supply the wind yourself. Sheep can 
barely exist on the soil, and it won't raise white beans. 
" Do you know about the mosquitoes ^ You walk 
along the Sacramento or the San Joaquin rivers, and 
the mosquitoes rise in swarms and follow you in droves; 
and there's terrible malaria in those valleys. Lots of 
ranchers have to go to the seashore in the summer to 
spend a couple of months, and you'd be surprised to 
see how wrinkly and dark and sick they look. Some 
owners, just in self-defense, lease their land to the 
Chinamen and live in the city themselves. Chinamen 
don't have malaria. They are very careful. They 
scrape their tongues at night with a piece of wood. 
I've watched 'em, and they bathe their feet before 
goin' to bed. They always boil their drinkin' water, too, 



222 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

and never take any in its original form, but add a little 



tea." 



"FU tell you another thing," said the older hobo. 
"I'm an ex-pugilist, but the fleas down there in South- 
ern California have knocked me down and jumped on 
me. Of course you don't get 'em real bad till summer, 
though there's some all the year." 

"Any hobo who wants to get work on a ranch here 
has got to carry his own blankets," remarked the 
younger man. "On the farms back East the hired 
man has a room in the house and he sits at the family 
table to eat. Here they want the workingman to 
knuckle down and show his inferiority. Unless he's 
got his blankets on his back and will sleep on the straw 
in the barn it's not easy to find a job. * Blanket stiffs' 
is what we call fellers who go about with their bedding. 
A stiff, you know, is a man who's dead — that is, one 
who's broke so often he don't really count in the 
world." 

"A man with a farm here don't begin to get the 
comfort out of it he would in the East," declared the 
other hobo. "Fifty acres of good land there will 
support him handsomely, and he'll raise all his own 
vegetables, meat and everything. Out here he may 
have a much bigger place, but he'll raise just one thing — 
fruit, or cattle, or whatever he chooses, and buy the 
rest, or do without. There's people in this country 



Among the Shasta Foothills 223 

with thousands of cattle who don't milk a single cow 
and they use condensed milk." 

"One reason why we have trouble in getting work 
here/' said the younger man, "is because employers 
all give preference to natives. You take it there at 
San Francisco, if you're a native son, they extend the 
glad hand and either give you a job or find one for you. 
There's a society they call * Native Sons of the Golden 
West' — Gloomy West, it ought to be; and it would 
describe the members more accurately if they called them 
^Native Drunks.' They're wine and steam-beer fiends, 
especially on the day when they gather by thousands 
to have their annual powv\^ow. A native son won't do 
you any kind of a favor without expecting you to grease 
his hand a little on the side; and we all despise a 
Cahfornia hobo. If there's a bunch of us together, 
and a native son comes along we won't feed him or let 
him come within forty rods of our camp. It's easy to 
get the best of 'em. They're not very sharp. You'd 
be surprised to see how simple some of these native sons 
are. Why, there was one of 'em who'd always lived in 
the hills, and he concluded he'd travel East. He'd 
never seen a railroad, and when he'd bought his ticket 
and the engine came snorting along the track he was 
so afraid of the monster he wanted to run away. They 
could only get him on the train by blindfolding him 
and backing him up on from a cattle shute." 



224 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

"Well, Fve got even with a few of *em for their 
meanness," said the older hobo. "Fve done quite a 
little canvassing out here, and if I'm sober I have a 
very good address and can make good money. One 
spell I put in selling nice gold watches for twenty dollars, 
or perhaps eighteen. They cost me three. Another 
while I sold harness-dressing that I manufactured 
myself. I'd explain how it would make the leather 
soft and pliable and increase the durability, and I did 
well. Once I had twenty-seven hundred dollars ahead, 
but it seemed to get away from me. I never was in- 
clined to hoard my money, and I could never save what 
I earned for more than a short time. 

"My best profit came from a home dressmaking 
pattern. It was a kind of a disk made to look like 
leather and there were holes punched in it. They cost 
me fifty cents and was marked five dollars, but I told 
people that the manufacturers allowed me to introduce 
'em at two-fifty. They sold quick, and often people 
who didn't buy would have me make a pattern for 
which they'd pay fifty cents. I could most always get 
feed for my horse and lodging for myself free by making 
a few patterns at the ranches where I stopped. 

" But it's much harder to sell to a California woman 
than it is to an Eastern woman. The climate seems to 
have a tendency to make people nervous and crazy. 
A woman here is always in a fidget, and at the same 




Washing day 



Among the Shasta Foothills 225 

time she may not be doing anything; and there's no 
use whatever tryin' to transact business with 'em after 
noon. You couldn't sell a California woman a twenty 
dollar gold piece for a nickel then. She either wants to 
take a nap, or to go out on the street to display her 
finery." 

Two other hobo couples now arrived in the grove. 
They had parcels of food under their arms, and began 
dinner preparations. Each couple had their own fire, 
and did their housekeeping separately, but there was a 
friendly interchange of certain portions of the bill of fare. 
One party lacked coffee and bread. These things were 
supplied by the other, which in return received some 
bacon fat to fry eggs in, and several other small items. 
One of my earlier acquaintances got out a piece of soap 
and washed his hands and face in a pail of warm water. 
Then he went to the stream and washed an extra shirt 
he carried, and hung it on the bushes. Lastly, he shaved 
himself. In the sheltered glade loitering among the 
shadows of the grove with its carpet of pine needles, 
and lulled by the gentle warmth of the weather and by 
the singing stream the hobo life had a flavor quite 
alluring. Certainly the hoboes themselves seemed 
content and even happy. 

The next morning the crown of the mighty Shasta 
was hidden by mists, and my landlady said, "It's an 



226 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

old Indian sign that when there's a cloud-cap on 
Shasta, *he talkee storm.'" 

Sure enough, the weather was threatening all day, 
and we had sprinkles of rain and could see the snow- 
squalls whirling across the white mountain wastes. 
The hired girl looked from the back door up at the 
wild clouds hovering about the giant mountain, and 
said, "I told 'em yesterday it was goin' to storm, and 
I've come out a winner." 

Though Shasta's topmost peak is 14,400 feet above 
the sea-level the climb to it is not especially difficult or 
dangerous, and many persons make the ascent every 
year. July and August are the best months for this, 
as then the weather is sure to be good and there is 
comparatively little snow. The climbers and their 
guide drive up to the timber line and camp for the 
night. At three the next morning they leave their horses 
and go the rest of the way on foot. Five hours of 
ascent takes them to the top, and they have ample time 
to look off on the world below, and to descend by night- 
fall to the village whence they started. The entire cost 
for parties of ten or more is five dollars each. For a 
single person the charge is twenty dollars. 

The mountain with its hoary peaks and its shaggy 
base is always impressive, and one is reminded of the 
Alps; yet it lacks something of their charm, for there 
you have a mystery of atmosphere you seldom get in 



Among Che Shasta Foothills 227 

our land, and the vales about are pastoral and gentle. 
Then, too, there are rustic homes and quaint villages 
and peasant life in keeping, or in interesting contrast 
with the scene. But in America the foreground is only 
wilderness or ruined forest, blasted by the ravages of 
the lumbermen, and the buildings are unsightly saw- 
mills, and temporary shacks for the help, and if there 
is a village it is altogether crude and unromantic. 

Note. — The Shasta region is a land for the lover of the beautiful 
with the pioneer instinct. There is fishing and hunting and mineral 
springs and the most impressive of scenery. Many resorts have come 
Into existence in the neighborhood where one can stop with entire 
comfort, such as Sisson, Mott, Shasta Springs, and Crag View. The 
climb to the summit of the white peak affords an exhilarating experi- 
ence, and the acquaintance one makes with the wilderness around is 
certain to leave many pleasant memories. 



XI 



OREGON FARM LIFE 



I WAS at a scattered village in a wide alluvial valley 
that was bordered by irregular wooded hills. 
Spring had arrived some time before, and the new 
leafage was well started, the grass was getting ankle 
high, dandelions, violets and buttercups were in bloom, 
and the garden posies were opening out around the 
homes. Most of the orchards were past their blossom 
season, but the apple trees were blushing in full splendor. 
Men were ploughing and harrowing, and some were 
planting corn, and some were hoeing their garden 
patches, where, though it was only mid-April, the peas, 
lettuce, cabbages and other things were all green and 
thriving, and the strawberries were beginning to shed 
their first petals. 

A variety of produce was raised in the region, but the 
great prune orchards were especially noticeable. About 
the barns were numerous hogs and calves, and in the 
pastures were grazing flocks of sheep and herds of 
cattle. There were large fields of wheat, and of oats 
and vetch sowed together, and of alfalfa. In the depths 

228 



Oregon Farm Life 229 

of the valley flowed Cow Creek, an innocent-looking 
stream just then, but showing signs in the gullies neigh- 
boring that it was a wild and wide-reaching torrent in 
flood-time. During the high water many of the out- 
lying farmers are cut off entirely from the village, and 
others can get to it only by keeping to the high ground 
and crossing fields and climbing fences. 

The prosperous serenity of the country was attractive, 
but scarcely stimulating, and when somebody chanced 
to speak of a place, six miles back in the hills, named 
Canyonville, I was eager to see it and visions of wild 
and picturesque beauty floated through my mind. I 
started in the early afternoon and tramped the dusty 
road in the warm sunshine up and down an endless 
succession of little hills. Sometimes I was amid farm 
fields, or pastures, sometimes in the sober fir forest. In 
the more open pastures grew occasional oak trees, 
their limbs raggedly fringed with moss. Occasionally 
there were thickets of chaparral frosted thickly over 
with blossoms, and humming full of bees. The little 
lizards were out enjoying the sunshine, but at my 
approach would scud to shelter with a quick rustle 
through the dry leaves. The birds sang, and far aloft 
in the sky sailed some stately buzzards. 

When I reached Canyonville the day was drawing to 
a close, and the cows were drifting in from their pas- 
turage. The place was a small trading center. It did 



230 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

not look very flourishing; for the main street was 
grass-grown, and many of the Httle stores on either side 
were vacant and had their windows boarded up. The 
most conspicuous of the village buildings were two 
diminutive churches, perched on the same knoll, 
both dilapidated, and one never had been painted. 
However, the hamlet, taken as a whole, in its setting 
of steep, fir-clad hills was quite delightful. 

I found lodging at the Overland Hotel, the only 
hotel in the place, but there was a stumpy, two-story 
building down the street that was formerly a rival. 
Latterly it had been used as a dwelling, though its 
sign was still up — "The Grand Central." "More 
name than house," one of the villagers remarked, and 
really, one would hardly expect so impressively named 
a hostelry in a remote country village. 

Like nearly all the buildings on the main street, 
whether shops or residences, my hotel stood snug to 
the board walk and had a piazza roof reaching out along 
the whole width of the front over the walk below. 
The piazza floor served as a sidewalk, but it also served 
the inmates of the hotel as a support for their chairs 
when they chose to sit in the open air. There I estab- 
lished myself soon after I arrived and rested and looked 
about. On the opposite side of the street was a group 
of boys squabbling playfully. They would snatch off 
each others' hats and give them a throw, and this 



I I : I ' ! 




^ 



Oregon Farm Life 231 

seemed to entertain them until one hat was tossed up 
on a roof. The roof was low, and by standing on a 
window ledge and clinging to the eaves the owner of 
the hat with the aid of a stick poked it off. Then he 
jumped down to the ground. A comrade laid hold 
of the hat again, but the owner became savagely 
belligerent and exclaimed, "You let loose o' there 
you dirty idiot, or FU hit you with this stick." 

That put a damper on the game and brought it to 
an end. The stout, elderly landlady of the hotel had 
come to the door. She called one of the boys over to 
her and said, " Roy, how's the folks ?" 

"Oh, they're pretty well," he replied. 

"You don't look like you been workin' none," she 
continued. "I wish you'd go to your house and bring 
me a few pounds o' butter." 

As he moved off she said to me, "His people make 
good butter, though it's claimed that the creamery here 
makes the best. The old fashioned country butter 
ain't to be depended on. Fve got three cows myself, 
but I use all the milk and cream. The only thing I 
don't like about the cows is that I have to do my own 
milking. Women do a good deal of the milking around 
here. 

"This is a nice place to live. You can't get rich; 
but even if you could, I don't know that you could 
take any more with you when you died." 



232 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

After supper, when the cows had been milked and 
the other work done, the hotel family both transient 
and permanent, gathered about the office stove, and as 
it was now dusky, Ella, the hired girl, lit the lamp. 
The evening was chilly, and one of the men spoke 
approvingly of the warmth that came with genial vigor 
from the little stove. 

"Well," remarked the landlady, "you can always 
depend on Ella to make a good hot fire, because the 
girl who does that is sure to get a smart husband." 

"That reminds me," said a teamster who was a 
local lodger, "I heard yesterday that Ed Slosson 
had married the Widow Weaver." 

"What in the world is he thinkin' of!" cried the 
landlady. "She's old enough to be his mother. He 
must be a-losin' his mind." 

"I guess he had a likin' for the old lady's farm," 
responded the teamster. "All the people up the valley 
where she lives have got fine places. Their buildings 
are good and their land is all fertile and easily handled. 
Down this way most every ranch is mortgaged, but up 
there they own their places clear. Vd like a good ranch 
myself; and yet if I had the money I don't suppose I'd 
buy one. You can't get a really first-class ranch for 
less than ten thousand dollars, and I don't know of 
any such in the county that will pay four per cent, on 
the price asked." 



Oregon Farm Life 233 

"Fd hate to ranch up where the Weaver place is," 
said another of the party. "It's too far from any 
village." 

"Most every place has its faults," commented the 
teamster. "You know where my brother lives. That's 
nice country, but I wouldn't live there on account of 
the water, though they say those that get used to it 
like it and don't want any other. They would just 
naturally starve to death if they couldn't get some of 
that old sour mineral water to drink. It's worse even 
than city water. I tell you, in summer, city water is as 
warm as dishwater and don't quench your thirst at all. 
Hain't that so ?" 

"Talkin' about mortgages," said the other man, "I've 
imagined when I was drivin' along that I could tell 
every place that wasn't paid for by the look o' the 
buildings. Lots o' men would do better to let their 
land go to the holder of the mortgage and pay crop 
rent instead of interest. That's what I been tellin' 
Albert Lannagan he'd better do." 

"Albert used to have a good stake," observed the 
teamster, "but he don't have the knack o' keepin' 
what he has like his father did." 

"That was once a great ranch for apples," continued 
the other speaker; "but there ain't been no right good 
apples in Oregon for twenty years. The old orchards 
have all failed like on account of the San Jose scale. 



234 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

However, I don't beheve we could equal the Eastern 
apples anyway. Apples are a cold climate fruit. Last 
year our crop was ruined by that hot day we had. The 
thermometer went up to io8, and, in addition, the wind 
blew hard, and every apple was scalded on the wind- 
ward side. There's one thing about it — we don't have 
to hurry pickin' 'em for fear of frost. I've seen apples 
hangin' on the trees perfectly good at Christmas." 

"I was readin' in the paper that Oregon apples beat 

the world," remarked a man who had not spoken before. 

"Oh, that ain't so at all," affirmed the teamster. 

"They don't compare with those back in Michigan 

where I come from." 

"I don't believe you're a good judge," the other 
retorted. "When a feller is young he has an appetite 
for fruit, and it never tastes the same afterward." 

"That ain't the case with me," responded the team- 
ster. "I enjoy fruit as well as ever I did. When it 
comes to apples I'm like the boy that set out to eat 
a barrel of sugar. He e't all he could and quit." 

"When I was a boy," said the other, "it used to be a 
great thing to go off in the woods and have a chicken 
roast. Some of the boys would steal the chickens. If I'd 
done that and my father had found it out there wouldn't 
have been enough left of me to tell the story. We used 
to take our own chickens. But I remember soon after 
I and my wife was married, two young brothers of hers 




The milkmaids 



Oregon Farm Life 235 

come in one evening with some chickens they'd stolen 
and wanted 'em cooked for them to have a picnic. 
*Boys/ said I, Til tell you right now you won't get 
them chickens cooked in this house. You've stole 'em 
and they may make you trouble. Best thing you c'n 
do is to say nothing to nobody and throw 'em out over 
the back fence.' 

"So that was what they did. Then they went home, 
and pretty soon I stepped out and picked up the chickens. 
They were dead, and there was no use o' wastin' 'em, 
and my wife cooked 'em. The boys ate some o' those 
same chickens; but they never did know that the 
chickens wa'n't ours. I'd learned 'em a lesson. If I 
had let 'em go on as they'd started there's no knowin' 
what they would have done later." 

" I wish business would pick up here," said the land- 
lady. "There's nothing a-doing much in the woods 
since the timber cruisers got into trouble. They have 
been havin' this racket over them a good while now. 
The government ain't a-goin' to allow them to be 
smugglin' the forest any more, and that's kind o' 
stopped business a little bit. It wa'n't many years ago 
this place supported six or seven saloons. Now it's 
prohibition. Oh, it used to be a good deal more lively." 

" I can mention one thing we ain't gone back much on," 
said the landlady's grandson who was sitting on an old 
sofa at the back of the room, "and that's lodges. We've 



236 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

got the Masons, and the Odd Fellows, and Rebeccas, 
and Eastern Star, and Degree of Honor and Knights of 
Pythias, and Woodmen of the World, and two or three 
others. The people are kind o' lodge crazy, and some 
belong to all the different lodges. We did have a grange, 
but the granges around here have all busted up." 

It was nearly nine o'clock, and the various members 
of the hotel gathering each took a candle and made 
their way upstairs to bed. 

Out at the rear of the hotel a bell was suspended on 
a pole, and I was awakened by its rude jangling the 
next morning at a quarter to six. Fifteen minutes 
later it again rang to make certain that everyone in 
the hotel and in the village should know that breakfast 
was ready. When I went downstairs I met the land- 
lady coming from the barn where she had just finished 
milking. The village was astir, and the smoke was 
rising lazily from home chimneys, and there were 
occasional passers clumping along on the board walks. 
The cows and horses were being turned loose to graze 
on the village streets and out into the surrounding 
forest. 

By eight o'clock the schoolboys began to gather at 
the battered two-story schoolhouse, which was on the 
borders of the central village cluster. Apparently they 
wanted plenty of time to play baseball; for after a little 
loitering about the front steps, they resorted to a near 



Oregon Farm Life 237 

common and a game was started. It was a large school, 
and rustic youths were plentiful, and the game was 
quite spirited. Nearly every boy wore overalls, and 
some came from home without their coats, and some 
were barefoot. I judged that as the season advanced 
they gradually shed their garments until they only 
retained the overalls and a shirt. A number of youths 
were reduced to those necessaries already. The ortho- 
dox head-covering was a straw hat with a broad brim 
that was rakishly turned up behind and down in front. 

When school-time approached, girls became as 
abundant as the boys, but their attire was neat and 
pretty and was not at all suggestive of the barn and the 
fields as was that of the boys. It was a pleasure to see 
a village so teeming with children, and all of them so 
hardy and genuinely rural. 

In the hamlet itself the men folks were now resorting 
to the post-office, and presently the stage came in. 
Then they got their mail and after more or less visiting 
dispersed, and the village settled down to its usual 
sleepy quiet. I went back into the country to have a 
look at the happy valley where all the land was superla- 
tively fertile and all the buildings substantial and all 
the farmers rich. It was an attractive region, but after 
having heard it described so enthusiastically it hardly 
came up to my expectations 



238 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

What interested me most in my ramble was a man I 
encountered by the roadside spHtting out "shakes." The 
material he used consisted of sections of straight- 
grained fir about thirty inches long. These had been 
roughly split out of a large tree into squarish blocks 
six or seven inches through. He would set one up on 
end and with his frow and maul ream out the thin boards 
quite deftly and rapidly. These home-made shakes 
were a very common roofing on the farm buildings, 
especially the barns and sheds. Pine was the most 
desirable material, but not a great deal grew here, and 
the man had resorted to fir. The chief trouble with the 
latter was that in nailing it to the roof it had a tendency 
to check, and a good many pieces had to be thrown 
away on this account. 

The man was elderly, and he had come to the region 
when it was new, over half a century ago. We got to 
talking, and pretty soon I sat down on his pile of shakes. 
Then he took out his pipe and after fiUing and lighting 
it seated himself on a log. "It was in 1853," ^^^^ ^^» 
"that I first saw this country. We'd come out here 
hunting for Oregon — that is, hunting for Oregon farm- 
lands that were as good as we'd heard tell of. We were 
six months getting to the coast region from our old 
home. Now, you can step on a railway train and get 
here in less than six days. Look at the progress of the 
world, will you .f* I gosh! if a man had advocated 




SchoolboYS 



Oregon Farm Life 239 

building a railroad across them plains in those days 
they'd 'a' hung him. They wouldn't 'a' believed it 
could be did. 

"We had flint-lock guns. Then the cap-lock was 
invented, and the brich-loader; and it wasn't long before 
a man wouldn't pick up a muzzle-loader if he saw one 
lying in the road. Muzzle-loaders shot good, but they 
were too slow. One man with a brich-loader was equal 
to twenty-five with the old-fashioned sorts. 

"This country was all wilderness and Indians. The 
mountains was wooded, but the valleys was prairie. 
There was some large timber in the valleys, but no 
underbrush, and the land was covered with bunch 
grass that growed thick and tall and was the finest feed 
possible. You could turn out your horses in the fall 
and they'd find plenty to eat and would keep fat as hogs 
all winter. Oh, Lord, yes! But as time went on this 
country got to be heavily sheeped, and the sheep e't off 
and tramped down the bunch grass till it was run out. 
The grass that's took its place is pretty poor. In the 
summer, which is when we have our rainless season, 
things dry up and you got to feed your cattle and keep 
on feedin' 'em straight through the fall and winter. 
If we have right early rains in the fall the grass may 
turn green a little, but it don't make growth to amount 
to anything. 



240 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

"You see lots o' young trees growin' everywhere the 
plough ain't gone, and what I said about there bein' so 
much prairie land don't seem likely, does it ? Well, 
I'll tell yer — it's a thing I kind o' hate to mention 
because Fm afraid people'll think I'm a liar — the 
reason of there bein' grass instead of underbrush and 
thick forest was that the Indians set fires to keep the 
land clear and make good range for their ponies, and 
easy hunting. 

"We took up a donation claim. All we had to do 
was to settle on the land, and it was ours. In a few 
years that was done away with and they substituted the 
homestead claim, and you had to pay something for 
your ranch. We put up a log house with a stick and 
clay chimney at one end. The boards for the floor we 
reamed out of four-foot cedar, and after bein' laid we 
levelled them with an adz and plane. The doors had 
wooden hinges and latches that we made ourselves. 
Iron was expensive. Nails was two bits or more a 
pound, and we mostly got along without 'em. For the 
roof, to save usin' nails, we put on a pole over each 
course of shakes to fasten 'em in place. 

"Oh, the early settlers had it pretty tough. We 
talked a jargon that was got up for the Indians; and that 
was taught in the schools. I used to could speak 
that jargon better than I could English and we had an 
/-dea that was goin' to be the standard language here 



Oregon Farm Life 241 

in Oregon. Grazing was the principal business. The 
man with ten acres fenced had a big place. There was 
plenty of wildcats and panthers, and black and brown 
bears, and you can find a good many still back in the 
mountains. Coyotes are about the worst pest now, 
though I can't say they're so awful bad. They kill 
sheep and ketch turkeys and chickens and anything 
like that. 

"We used to raise better wheat then than we can at 
present; but we didn't have any of our modern machin- 
ery for handling it. We tramped the grain out with 
horses or cattle. We'd clear up a circle on the ground 
about thirty feet across, and some people would build 
a platform. Then around the outer part we'd lay a 
ring of sheaves with the butts inward. There were 
several ways to do the thrashing. Perhaps the common- 
est was for a feller to get on a saddle horse and lead 
another and go round and round over the grain. I've 
rode a horse like that a many a day thrashing. Some- 
times a yoke of cattle would be driven around instead 
of horses. Often a post was set up in the middle of the 
circle with a long arm to it, and the horses hitched to 
the end of that and set to goin.' From time to time 
we'd stop to turn the sheaves or to throw out the straw, 
rake the grain into a heap in the center of the circle 
and put down more sheaves to tramp. 



242 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

"Now Fve got to git to work, and I want twenty 
dollars from you. The information Fve given is worth 
that, ain't it ?" 

Note. — ^To see the Oregon farm country, probably one could not 
do better than to explore the Willamette Valley south of Portland. 
From the agricultural point of view this is a very attractive region 
and you will find much to please you in soil, crops, climate and 
people. 

A very interesting freak of nature in the south-western part of the 
state is Crater Lake. Medford in the Rogue River Valley is the 
nearest railway station. The distance is 85 miles and the road fairly 
good. The round trip can be made by automobile in two days. The 
lake is over 6,000 feet above the sea among the heights of the 
Cascade Mountains, where it occupies the abyss of an extinct 
volcano. It is about 5 miles in diameter. Around it rises a per- 
pendicular wall of rock from 500 to 2,000 feet high. The lake is 
2,000 feet deep. It has no visible inlets or outlets, but the water is 
fresh and pure, and of a wonderfully clear ultramarine hue. The 
volcanic cone of Wizard Island rises from the water to a height of 
845 feet, and is a curious instance of a crater within a crater. There 
is a launch and rowboats on the lake, and the fishing is excellent. 
The district containing this lake has been set apart as a national 
park. 







fc^ 






XII 



ALONG THE COLUMBIA 



THE Columbia is one of the biggest of American 
rivers, and in time of flood it has a flow greater 
than is ever attained by either the St. Lawrence 
or the Mississippi. Its lower course, especially, is 
broad and impressive, and a great highway for com- 
merce and travel. At the mouth, the river is two miles 
across. Here, a short distance back from the sea, John 
Jacob Astor in 1811 established a trading post. He 
selected a spot where the south shore dipped inward a 
little and a cove gave slight shelter. This did very 
well as a site for a village cluster, but for a large town 
like the present Astoria it has disadvantages. The 
shores nearly everywhere rise from the water's edge in 
a steep hillside, and the place clings along this declivity 
for several miles. It is very odd — the way the buildings 
Uft one above the other, and you are surprised by the 
sharp rise of the streets and by the numerous stairways 
that give approach to the upper tiers of homes. The 
climbing is evidently not relished, for the buildings are 
snugged in a very close but attenuated mass on the 

243 



244 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

lower verge of the slope while the upper portion is a 
background of ragged forest. Probably more than half 
the town is not on the land at all but is on the wharves 
or stilted up at the waterside with the waves lapping 
about underneath at high tide. The principal business 
thoroughfare is a wharf street. This is largely a result 
of the fact that the ships formerly furnished nearly all 
the custom, and the trader who was right on the 
wharves had the most advantageous position. The 
whole water front is a curious labyrinth of these wharves, 
and they jut far out into the water, with a zig- 
zagging of streets and numerous footways, and the 
railroad cutting across them all. Here are enormous 
sawmills with their great piles of lumber, the ware- 
houses of the river steamers and of the ocean-going 
ships, and the wide-spreading fish canneries. 

Here too were the fish wharves with hundreds of 
the staunch rowboats alongside used in the salmon 
fishing, and as the boats rocked on the waves the pulleys 
that were a part of the tackle by which they were 
hitched kept up a weird and incessant creaking. Some 
of the boats had gasoline power, but in most I saw a 
mast lying along the gunwale, and as soon as the craft 
started for work and got into open water the mast was 
set in place and the sail spread to the breeze. Now 
and then a boat would begin to drop the net over 
the stern within a few hundred feet of the wharves. 




Mending a salmon fief 



Along the Columbia 245 

Others went out to the middle of the river or to the 
opposite shore, or down where the stream meets the 
ocean. Each boat carries two men — a "captain" and 
an "oar-puller." They let the net drift with the tide. 
When they at length take it into the boat they may 
have only one or two fish, or they may have dozens. 
In a catch of twenty-five fish there will be those that 
weigh anywhere from fifteen to sixty pounds, and there 
is a possibility of getting a giant of the race that will 
run up to over eighty pounds. 

Boats are coming and going all the time, but most 
of them start out at low tide, toward evening, and do 
not return till morning. In the quiet weather of summer 
they often delay the start for home until the land breeze 
springs up, and then come flitting in, half a thousand 
or more, all together. After a boat has delivered its 
fish to the cannery or cold storage it returns to its 
hitching-place by the wharf, and the wet net piled at 
the stern is pulled out and hung on rails that are set 
on the wharf for this purpose. Later the net is carefully 
looked over and the breaks repaired. Sometimes it 
has caught on a snag and been torn so badly that it is 
a several days' task to put it in shape. The nets are 
both wide and long, and cost three or four hundred 
dollars. A boat costs about half as much more. Profits 
are divided, two thirds going to the captain and one 
third to the oar-puller. A captain who uses good 



246 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

judgment and works hard may be fortunate enough to 
clear during the season close to two thousand dollars. 
But the average is much less, and some poor stupid 
fellows barely pay expenses. 

The open season is from April fifteenth to August 
fifteenth. There is no forecasting when the fish will 
run in multitudes. One man may come home and go 
to bed having caught nothing. Another may come in 
an hour later who has drawn up his net so full that he 
cannot get all the fish into his boat and has to throw 
many away. Often, the bulk of the catch is made 
within a fortnight, but again the haul of fish may be 
distributed somewhat unevenly through the entire four 
months. A man is supposed to make all he needs in 
the season to carry him through the year, and some 
arc content to loaf and do odd jobs during the time 
that intervenes between seasons. Others find steady 
work. There was a time when the fishermen were 
largely Americans and English, but now they are nearly 
all Finns or natives of Eastern and Southern Europe, 
who speak our language brokenly or not at all. 

Get away from the town inland and you find almost 
unbroken forest. In a few favored spots a little farm- 
land has been cleared. A considerable quantity of 
potatoes is raised, and the Chinese have plots where 
tlrey grow most of what the town needs in the way of 
green vegetables. You see these slant-eyed gentry 



Along the Columbia 247 

peddling their products through the streets, carrying 
their wares in two plethoric baskets suspended from 
the ends of a bamboo pole which is balanced on the 
shoulder. 

In the woods are to be found raspberries, black- 
berries and huckleberries in abundance, while straw- 
berries flourish in the open country. But for the most 
part these small wild-fruits go unpicked, though in 
quality they are far finer than those grown in the tepid 
climate of California. The people continue to depend 
on the south for fruits because nobody cares to be 
troubled with anything that brings such small returns 
as berry-picking. There is practically no poverty, and 
therefore no spur to make small savings. If any families 
are poor it is because of drink. Astoria's main street 
had fourteen saloons in a third of a mile, and all the 
towns and villages in the valley seemed to be over- 
supplied with drinking-places in a somewhat similar 
manner. Apparently, everyone resorted to them — fish- 
ermen and lumbermen, merchants and farmers, and 
while I did not often see men wholly incapacitated 
because of their potations, there were plenty who got to 
the border line. Nor did this seem to be counted a 
serious failing, but, rather, the natural thing for any 
man to occasionally drink to excess. As a visitor from 
Iowa expressed himself to me on the subject, "My 
sakes! it's awful, ain't it!" 



248 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

In Astoria the streets were mostly planked. It was 
the same in other places, and from some of the river 
villages the plank roads ran far out into the forest. 
When in good repair they made a fairly smooth road, 
but where they were broken or teetering one got well 
jolted in riding over them. I sometimes saw split 
sections of trees substituted for the plank back in the 
woodland, and then the surface was much like corduroy. 

Habitations all along the river stuck pretty close to 
the waterside, and the stream and the railway skirting 
it furnished nearly the entire means of transportation. 
Here and there were trails through the woods, but no 
roads worthy the name when you got away from the 
villages. The country is still very rich in natural 
resources and has only been scratched yet. Get away 
from the river a short distance almost anywhere and 
you are in heavy woodland so thick and luxuriant that 
you push along in a twilight gloom. The shores of the 
stream abound in booms and logs, and you see frequent 
stern-wheel steamers ploughing their way up stream 
with a long raft traiHng behind. At the mouth of every 
creek there seemed to be a sawmill, and the creek was 
perhaps a waterway for floating down the logs, or it 
may be it only served to make an opening back into 
the hills for a narrow-gauge logging railway. 

Such trees as the mills were working up we see no 
more in the East — so straight and large and free from 



Along the Columbia 249 

blemish. What to do with the slabs and refuse is a 
problem. The mill men would gladly dump them into 
the river, but there is a law to protect the fishing which 
forbids the water being thus contaminated. A good 
deal they burn. Some make great piles of the waste 
material round about the mill at the edge of the water, 
and when the floods come it is a relief if the accumula- 
tions go adrift. Perhaps the mill owners had exactly 
that in mind when the piles were made. Laws are all 
very well for others, but when they interfere with one's 
personal convenience or profit men are prone to attempt 
dodging. So the shores of the great river are every- 
where thick-strewn with sawed fragments and sawdust 
and there are Ukewise numberless stumps and logs of all 
sizes. Some of these stray logs were thicker than I am 
tall. Often, they were perfectly sound, yet they either 
get imbedded in the mud and stay to rot, or find their 
way to the ocean. For many families it is more con- 
venient to get firewood from the shore than from the 
forest. If so, the supply is inexhaustible. Then, too, 
when a man wants to build a fence or a shed he can by 
a little picking get plenty of really good timber and 
boards from the drift to meet all his needs. 

The sawmill people are reckless regarding the fishing, 
and so are the fishermen themselves. The finest salmon 
are the Royal Chinooks, and the law only allows them 
to be taken for four months; but in the smaller places 



250 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

the fishing is almost continuous. The fishermen are 
supposed to set free any Chinook that gets into their 
nets out of season, but I am afraid they seldom do. 
They dispose of such fish less openly, but rarely are 
willing to sacrifice the immediate personal gain to the 
future common good. If left entirely to their own 
devices the fishermen would in a few seasons extermi- 
nate the salmon and put an end to the very industry 
by which they make their living. A few years ago it 
seemed likely this would happen, but of late the propa- 
gation of the fish has received attention, and many 
millions of spawn have been put in the waters. As a 
result the number of fish has apparently been largely 
increased. How much it is not easy to say, for the 
people interested in the industry prefer there should be 
an impression of a short catch in order to bolster prices, 
and the real quantity in pounds secured is very likely 
a fourth greater than the published figures. 

At the time of my visit the river water was brown 
with mud. This just suited the fishermen, for the fish 
are then less able to see and avoid the nets. Later in 
the season a good deal of fishing would be done with 
long seines fastened at one end to the shore on a gently 
shelving beach. The other end is carried out on a 
flat-boat in a long loop down stream, brought to the 
land and pulled in by horses. Many fish are also 
caught in traps. A trap consists of a line of poles 







Q 
"n 

^ 



Along the Columbia 251 

driven into the river bottom near shore with wire 
netting fastened to them. The fish come to the wire 
and feel their way along until they are in a kind of 
pocket at the end whence they are not able to find their 
way out. Down at the bottom of the pocket is a net, 
and when this is raised, up come the fish, and the 
fisherman reaches in and takes them out. 

Most of the river hamlets are rude and small, and 
with the dark fir woods closely environing them they 
seemed lonely and much cut off from the world. But 
sources of pleasure are by no means entirely lacking. 
At one place where I stopped they were to have a dance 
that evening including a midnight supper at a dollar 
a ticket. The clouds began to threaten in the afternoon, 
and the young folks were a good deal concerned lest 
it should rain and hurt the success of their entertain- 
ment. The girl who waited on the table at the one 
village restaurant was especially anxious. Those on 
whom she waited were mostly fishermen and railroad 
workers in overalls and shirt sleeves. They talked 
dance and they talked fish, and they chaffed the girl. 
She talked back and added liveliness to the occasion by 
snatching back the dishes just as she was about to 
deliver them into the hands of the eaters, or she would 
give a slap to the paper one fellow was reading every 
time she passed. The room was rough in its appoint- 
ments, and the food as a whole was not very satisfying, 



2^52 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

but the boiled salmon was delicious and the quantity 
served most generous. 

Across the way from the restaurant was a grocery 
store; and the sign painted on the three panes of glass 
that formed the diminutive show window read thus: 
I DAN I FOW I LER |. This had a short-syllabled 
suggestion that the proprietor was Chinese. Near by was 
another business which had a similar sign, only this sign 
ran across two windows with a substantial sepa- 
ration between as follows: | SAL | | OON |. 
Judging from English associations with the names, Dan 
Fow Ler was a man, and Sal Oon a w^oman. On 
the whole, I concluded some sign painter with a relish 
for a joke had been travelling on the coast. I saw 
other signs of the sort and recall one in particular 
covering the front of a building but with a window in 
the middle of it so that the letters were grouped like 



this: LOD- 



GING. 



From the village where I had stopped on the Colum- 
bia I rambled back up a hollow past several homes 
with garden patches and a few fruit trees and small 
fields about them. In the near woodland the dogwood 
bushes were full of their white wings, and the roadside 
was aglow with dandelions. But when I went on I did 
not have to go far into the forest before I found that a 
fire had run through it, and few trees had survived. 



Along the Columbia 253 

Some still stood, bare and dead, and many had fallen 
making the earth a chaos of their shattered and black- 
ened trunks. For several miles I plodded on and every- 
where saw naught but the charred and melancholy 
woodland ruins. It looked as if the region could never 
again know the beautiful, tall green forest that had 
formerly grown here. Some of the wilderness fires run 
over vast areas and even destroy homes and lives, but 
most of the woodland is now owned by the lumber 
companies, and they take many precautions to prevent 
or fight fires that used to be neglected. The law compels 
the burning of the winter slashings, and this has to be 
done early while the ground is still moist so that the 
fires will not run through the woods. The entire 
Columbia Valley was dim and blue and often the 
opposite shore faded into ghostly vagueness by reason 
of the smoke from the slashings. 

To see the river at its best one should make the jour- 
ney from Portland to the Dalles, a distance of nearly 
one hundred miles. The railroad is close to the shore 
much of the way and the views from the car window 
are quite entrancing, but it is only from the river steam- 
ers that one gets the full beauty of the scenes. As you 
go up the river the valley is at first broad and pastoral, 
a succession of billowy hills with their farmlands and 
forest, their scattered homes and grazing lands. Grad- 
ually the hills lift into wooded bluffs, and you at times 



254 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

find rocky precipices rising from the water's edge, or 
lonely pinnacles like monster monuments. The stream 
resembles the most romantic portions of the Hudson 
in its scenery, but it is an untamed river of the wilder- 
ness with a vigor and a charm all its own. Willows and 
cottonwoods fringe the shores, but the crags and 
slopes are almost solidly clothed with evergreens. 

At intervals some little village found a clinging place 
in a dell among the rocks, and these forest hamlets 
looked very attractive and Swiss-like in their mountain 
environment. Perhaps the most pleasing of them is 
Cascade Locks at a spot where the river breaks into a 
foaming tumult of rapids and the shores rise in great 
rocky ranges on either side. The homes hide among 
the trees, and the land is a medley of steep hills and 
irregular hollows. Everyone apparently built as fancy 
dictated, and the houses were most picturesquely 
scattered, some on the bluffs overlooking the river, 
some on the little heights farther back, some in the 
green dells with perhaps a mountain rivulet, crystal 
clear, tumbling along through the dooryard. If you 
followed the narrow roads and paths that linked the 
houses together you were always twisting and turning, 
climbing or descending, but the sudden surprises of the 
views were ample payment for the exertion. 

Wherever there was a rift in the trees in the direction 
of the stream, you saw its foaming waters and the big 






^W »j*. ?*'*-.>"r'*^ 



'^%^ 



--•v^- 




W^oodla7id blosso7ns 



Along the Columbia 255 

stony terraces of the mountains beyond, while in the 
other direction the shattered cliffs towered into the sky, 
calm and majestic guardians of the vale. Formerly, 
according to an Indian legend, the river here was 
spanned by a mighty natural bridge, beneath which the 
water flowed smoothly in an unbroken channel, and the 
red men were accustomed to cross the bridge in their 
travels and local intercourse. At one time there lived 
on the Oregon side an Indian brave whom the gods 
regarded with much favor. While hunting on the 
Washington side he met and fell in love with an Indian 
maiden of a neighboring tribe. Presently he married 
her and they started together for his home. But when 
about to cross the bridge, disappointed suitors and 
others of the maiden's tribe leaped out from an ambush. 
The two hastened on across the bridge, and no sooner 
had they reached the Oregon side than they heard a 
tremendous crash, and looking around they saw that 
the great bridge had fallen carrying the wrathful 
pursuers to their death. Thus the gods showed their 
love for the young brave. The fall of the bridge formed 
the rapids which have obstructed the white man's 
navigation. 

The village came into being as a portage place; for 
steamers could not get over the rapids, and their cargoes 
had to be transferred a half mile across a neck of land. 
Now the government has built locks, and the steamers 



256 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

pass on. These locks have cost three or four million 
dollars, probably twice what a private concern would 
have paid for the same work. The investment is entirely 
out of proportion to any present business done through 
the locks. The cost of maintenance is considerable 
and the daily passage of four of the flat-bottomed river 
steamers constitutes practically all the traffic. As one 
man said to me, "The business won't pay for the axle- 
grease used.'* 

In earlier days the local fishing was an important 
industry, but salmon are not as plentiful here as they 
were. Below the locks are numerous fish-wheels 
along the shores. They are a striking feature of 
the landscape, for they are from twenty to forty 
feet in diameter and six or eight feet across. Each 
pair of spokes is fitted with a great wire-meshed 
scoop. The wheel is adjusted in a substantial 
framework, and the current revolves it and keeps the 
scoops lifting from the water. A stout lattice dam 
reaches out from the wheel with a sharp slant down 
stream, and there is a boom moored above to protect 
the whole structure from drift rubbish. The dam 
guides the fish to the wheel, and the first thing they 
know they are hoisted in the air, fall into an inclined 
trough at the hub, from which they flop down at one 
side onto a platform, or into an inclosure of water 
where the fishermen can get them at their convenience. 



Along the Columbia 257 

It is customary to string the fish on wires and attach 
them to a half-barrel which acts as a buoy and drop 
them into the stream. Arrangements have been made 
with a cannery down the river, where a man is on the 
watch for them, and when a buoy comes in sight he 
goes out in a launch and gets the fish. Sometimes as 
many as a ton are attached to a single half-barrel. 

The chief resort for persons of leisure in the village 
was the porch of a tiny butcher's shop. Thence you 
could look down from the hillock where the shop stood 
and see two or three other small places of business, a 
hotel and the station. This was the heart of the hamlet, 
but there was seldom enough transpiring to rouse the 
loiterers from their dreamy lethargy. Occasionally 
there were attempts at joviality, but the sluggish social 
current was only slightly stirred thereby. One man 
tried his wit several times on a gnarled old citizen with 
a brush of gray whiskers under his chin who was 
absorbed in a newspaper. But the latter would only 
glance reluctantly over his spectacles, make a short 
response and return to his reading. Finally the joker 
said, "Did you know I was a Norwegian?" 

The reader looked up and a smile overspread his 
somber features. "Wal," he replied, "I guess ye are a 
good deal north of wegian." 

The joker saw that he had been worsted at his own 
game, and he walked away. Shortly afterward we had 



258 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

a new accession to our group. He was a brisk elderly 

man, who as he stepped onto the porch regaled us with 

a couplet of a song which ran in this wise: 

" Happy land, happy land! 
Breaking stones and wheeling sand." 

He went into the shop, and the butcher asked him 
why he hadn't bought any meat of him lately. 

" I ain't eaten no beefsteak for a month," replied the 
singer. "It don't agree with me." 

"If you stop eatin' and buyin* meat how'm I goin' to 
live .f*" said the butcher. 

"Well," responded the singer, "that's your lookout. 
I can't kill myself to make the butcher live." 

So saying he came out on the porch and sat down on 
a keg. We got to talking and among other things spoke 
of the fishing. "The salmon have been kind o' played 
out the last few years up here," said he, "and when a 
fish-wheel gets worn out or stove up we don't trouble 
to repair it, and there's seldom any new ones built. 
But a good many are in use yet. It's the easiest way 
of fishin' that there is. All you have to do is to set and 
watch the salmon get caught. You don't find any 
wheels below Portland. The current ain't strong 
enough. The wheels does best in quick water. 

"A dozen years ago this here river was full of salmon. 
I've taken a dip net and stood on the shore and thrown 
half a ton out in a single day. The net was on the end 



Along the Columbia 259 

of a sixteen foot pole, and Fd just let it down and then 
lift it up. The water was generally too riley for me to 
see the fish. There was lots of fun and excitement 
when they was comin' fast. I've dipped out three blue- 
backs to a lick, and once I got a Royal Chinook that 
weighed sixty-eight pounds. He was a whopper; 
but we didn't use to be paid only two cents a pound." 

While we were chatting, a laborer passed, shouldering 
a roll of blankets. The butcher had come to the door, 
and he pointed to the passer and said, "You see that 
feller don't you ? Well, when I first reached here from 
the East I thought a man with his bed on his back 
was the funniest thing I'd ever come across; but a 
rancher in this country won't take his hired man into 
his house. They've got to furnish their own blankets 
and usually sleep on the hay in the barn. I know a 
feller who, when he'd just arrived and didn't understand 
the ways they manage, got a job harvesting on a big 
wheat ranch. The help are apt to sleep in the straw 
stacks then, and it's precious little time they get to 
sleep anywhere; but he didn't know anything about 
that, and he was sitting around in the evening, and he 
says to the rancher, * Where am I goin' to sleep tonight .?' 

Why, I don't care where you sleep,' says the 
rancher. * I've got nine hundred and sixty acres of land 
around here, and if you can't find a place to sleep on 
that, I'll get my next neighbor to lend me a piece of his,* 



z6o Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

"A man usually rolls up in his blankets on the hay 
in the barn. At the sawmills here the employers 
furnish a tent, or shack, and boards to build a bunk and 
some hay to put in the bottom of the bunk, and then 
the worker fixes up to suit himself. Yes, it's only 
hoboes who travel without blankets. When you see a 
man knockin' around this country empty-handed and 
lookin' for work, you can be dead sure he's prayin' to 
God never to find it.'* 

At the village hotel, among a few other transients 
was a watch-peddler. He was eighty-six years old, 
bowed and gray, but still brisk and hearty. He had a 
neat little grip packed with the watches and with a 
variety of chains, fobs and jewelry, and he not only 
sold from this stock, but did repairing. He mentioned 
one family in the place to which he had sold eleven 
watches, "and good ones, too." His sales to that 
particular family would have been fewer had it not been 
that its head was a logging laborer on the river, and 
occasionally lost a watch in the water. The peddler 
had been in the country for many years, and he had 
observed much and intelligently. I was interested in 
his views of the difference between life in New England 
and in the Far West. 

"I remember very well my father's house back in 
Vermont," said he one evening as we were sitting 
together in the hotel office. " It was big and substantial 




In a village on the Columbia 



Along the Columbia 261 

and we had a nice garden and raised all sorts of things 
for our own eating. My father, as affairs went then and 
in that region, was a rich man. He owned a good farm 
and had four or five thousand dollars in the bank. 
Everybody called him Uncle Joe, and if anyone needed 
to borrow they'd come to him. They didn't borrow 
very heavy. A hundred dollars was a big pile for a 
man to go in debt them days — that's what it was! My 
father wa'n't an eddicated man. It was my mother 
learned him to write after they was married. He used 
to do most of his figgering with a piece of charcoal on 
a board. 

"When I first came out here I took up a claim, and 
I had a neighbor on one side of me that was nicknamed 
* Gassy' Smith because he talked so much, and on the 
other side lived a man called *Hog' Jones who was so 
stingy he wa'n't fit to live. Hog was well off, but he 
was like this — if you was to buy a bushel of wheat of 
him that was worth seventy-five cents he'd make you 
pay two dollars for it if he possibly could. Most of the 
people around were Southern, and they were copper- 
heads of the worst kind, while I was a republican. 
They didn't like me a little bit, and even threatened to 
shoot me, but I tried to treat 'em right and did 'em any 
favors I could, and they got over that. 

"My son has a farm out here now. His house looks 
as if it had stood where it is for seventeen hundred 



262 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

years, but I don't suppose it has for fifty. It's the 
darndest old shack you ever saw, but that don't 
seem to trouble him any. He's got the Western habit 
of not payin' much attention to the home surroundings. 
The country here is developing all the time, but the 
houses is dreadful little improved over what they were 
twenty years ago. I've stayed at houses so poorly 
built and neglected the sand blowed in the cracks 
across the floor. You rarely find a good henhouse, or 
stable, or barn, or a woodshed properly filled. Usually 
the wood is just a pile in the yard exposed to the weather, 
and there's not much cut up ahead. They haul it a 
load at a time, and I've seen 'em do the splitting by 
leaning the sticks against the wagon tongue. Often, 
in order to handle a fallen tree and make it into cord 
wood lengths, they bore two holes with a long augur 
into the center of the tree at different angles so they'll 
meet. This they do at each place where they want to 
cut it off, then drop a live coal into one of each pair of 
augur holes and the coals burn through the log and 
reduce it roughly into sections that can be handled. 
The method is wasteful, but it saves the trouble of 
sawing. 

"Our farms have great natural resources, and it 
seems curious the people should be too lazy to raise 
vegetables and the like o' that; and yet they are. 
Oh, my, I should say so! The ranches all have smoke- 



Along the Columbia 263 

houses and their meat food is mostly pork, but in the 
villages beef is common, only the beef is apt to be this 
dry, tough Coast sort. It ain't like the juicy tender 
beef you get in the East. Not much corn is grown here 
to fatten the creatures with, and in most parts they 
have to do a lot of tramping over the range to get 
enough to eat. Exercise and poor feed makes the meat 
tough and the cattle small and lean. You let a man 
from here see the way cattle are given corn in the 
East — all they will eat — and his eyes would fall right 
out of his head with surprise. 

"I've stopped at ranches to get dinner where they 
wouldn't furnish me anything but bread and milk, 
and darn poor bread at that. Even then they wa'n't 
hardly satisfied with twenty-five cents to pay for it. 
Good Lord! I've been to places where they had any 
amount o' cows and yet not a mite of butter. Most 
men get to own their places clear, but they seldom 
have money laid by. However, there are some men 
who in the larger enterprises of the region make their 
fortunes. I know one fellow who came into this village 
with fifty dollars in his pocket and he became a partner 
in the sawmill. A few years later he sold out his interest 
for sixty thousand dollars. He was a smart, sharp, 
devilish good man, I tell yer. When he got his cash he 
left. He didn't build here or spend any of his money 
here." 



264 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

"No/* said a young fellow who with a companion 
was playing cards at a neighboring table, "of course 
he didn't. A man with wealth has no business Hving 
in a hole Hke this. What enjoyment is there here for 
him? He goes, and he goes quick, you betcher!" 

No doubt the confines of hfe in the river village were 
narrow, but I could not feel that it was so blank as 
this young man claimed. Certainly nature had done 
much for the place, and the wild charm of mountains 
and forest and stream surrounding could not easily 
be surpassed. 

Oregon Notes. — By all means visit Astoria, and see the lower 
river and its wilderness hamlets, and its fishermen and woodsmen. 

Astoria was settled in 181 1, but immigration to this section of the 
country was slow for a long time owing to the prevalent idea that 
the region was valueless, and access to it difficult. As late as 1842, 
Oregon had a population of only 240 white persons. Portland 
started in 1843. Since that time its growth has been rapid and un- 
interrupted. It calls itself the "Rose City," and a Rose Festival 
is held there in the first week of June. The city is at the head of 
deep sea navigation on the Willamette River, 6 miles above that 
river's junction with the Columbia. 

The favorite excursion from Portland is up the Columbia to the 
Cascades, 60 miles, and to the Dalles, 50 miles beyond. 

Twenty miles more takes one to the station, Hood River. From 
there stages run in summer 27 miles to Cloud Cap Inn at the foot of 
the glaciers on the north side of Mt. Hood. Thence excursions can 
be made to many glaciers and cascades. The ascent to the summit 
of the mountain, which is over 1 1,000 feet above the sea, is somewhat 
difficult, yet is often made by ladies. From 6 to 10 hours is sufficient 
for the round trip. 



XIII 



ON THE SHORES OF PUGET SOUND 

THE place where I stopped longest in the Puget 
Sound country was a scattered settlement of 
five thousand people which was old as age goes 
in the Northwest. Its most commanding height was 
crowned with a big school-building, and there were 
little church spires sticking up all about. "We're 
supplied with pretty near every creed and denomination 
you can think of," declared one citizen proudly. 

As I was rambling through the town on my first 
evening there a church bell that I judged from the 
sound was one size larger than a hand bell, began to 
ding-dong not far away. I was on the same street as 
the church and presently came to the edifice. Several 
boys were climbing up to look in the windows and then 
jumping down. "I see him!" they cried excitedly. 
"I see the crazy man!" 

The bell now ceased its clamor, and I concluded to 
attend service. I entered and found a Young People's 
Meeting in progress. Outside I could hear the boys 
scuflBing at the windows. After a while a man in the 

265 



266 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

audience rose and left the room. He was shabbily 
dressed, his hair was tousled, his looks vacant and his 
step shuffling. He was the crazy man. Nearly all in the 
room turned to watch him go, and among the children 
there was much snickering which was long in subsiding. 

After the meeting came to an end there was a second 
meeting in a larger room across the hall for the entire 
congregation. The gathering was small, but the 
service had considerable vim in it. The singing, with 
the cabinet organ to lead, was particularly energetic, 
though the hard metallic tones of the voices savored 
of the uncultured wilderness. The region is still raw 
and youthful, and delicacy of feeling and expression 
will come later. The regular preacher was away, and 
a member of the congregation who had a knack for 
speaking took his place. He looked like a reformed 
bartender — stout figured, with a narrow forehead, a 
heavy mustache and a hoarse, loud voice. When he 
rose to begin his sermon he said, "There was an old 
farmer went to town to buy a clock, and the storekeeper 
showed him one, and says, * Here's a clock that will 
run eight days without winding.' 

"* Gracious!' says the farmer, *and if she will run 
eight days without winding how long will she run if 
you wind her ?' 

"Now, I ain't been wound up for eight days myself, 
so there's no knowing how long Fd run if I had been 




Mending a shoe 



On the Shores of Puget Sound 267 

wound up. Tm goin' to talk to you tonight about the 
Bible. The Bible ain't just one book. It's many books 
put together. How many books are there in the Bible .?" 

He paused, tipped his head on one side and raised 
his eyebrows inquiringly. There was a blank silence. 
"Don't all speak at once," he cautioned jokingly. 

"Sixty-six," responded a faint voice in the audience. 

"Yes," said the preacher, "and sixty-six books is 
a good big library; but if you was to go and collect all 
the books that have been written about the Bible or 
been inspired by it you would have thousands — ain't 
that right ? 

"The Bible wa'n't given to the world all complete. 
It was given gradually — first a little for Adam, then 
more for Abraham and his family, and later still more 
for the Jewish people. But finally it was all given and 
was for the whole world. The climax of God's work 
was to send Christ down here on the earth, and Christ 
came to save the people of his day, and he came to save 
you and I. This was a savage old world then. You 
take the thumb-screw and the stretchers and gulletin 
and the gladiator which was all a-flourishin' — it was 
time for judgment, and the Christian religion was 
necessary." 

At the close of the service the fact that I was a 
stranger led a number to shake hands and introduce 
themselves and say a friendly word. This reception 



268 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

was very pleasant, but the greetings were coupled with 
some extras I did not so much appreciate. One asked 
me if I was a Christian, another if I was a Baptist the 
same as they were, and they all wanted to know if I 
was going to settle there, and one tried his best to direct 
me to the office of a relative who was a real estate agent. 

Along the borders of the town ran a swift, deep river, 
and on its banks were sawmills and shingle mills. All 
through the day the air was shrilled with the sound 
of the demoniac saws and the panting of engines. 
Every mill had its great piles of sawed lumber about 
and its heap of burning waste constantly crackling and 
sending up a cloud of smoke. The region contains the 
finest and largest body of timber in existence, but it is 
fast going. "When I come here four years ago," said 
one man, "nearly all the roads leading out of town was 
hardly wider than the wheel tracks and was closed in 
on both sides by heavy forest. You couldn't hardly 
see daylight, but gee whiz! it's a fright the way the 
forest has been cleared up, and now those same roads 
are lined with farms. In a few years more there'll be 
none of the best forest left." 

One afternoon I went back into the woodland to 
see some of it that had been untouched. I followed 
a logging railroad, starting at a spot four miles out of 
town where they dumped the logs from the cars into 
the river. I was soon in genuine Puget Sound forest 



On the Shores of Puget Sound 269 

where except for the railroad the woodsmen had as 
yet done no work. This particular section had been 
neglected because the trees were mostly hemlocks, 
timber which is comparatively valueless. But they 
were wonderful trees, straight as arrows, clean-stemmed, 
crowded, and astounding in their towering height. 
The fires had never run through them, and for once I 
saw woodland as nature intended it should be. No 
matter how fierce the winds might be that swept the 
tree tops they could not ruffle the forest depths. Here 
eternal quiet reigned. Here was always coolness and 
moisture and twilight, even at midday. Here grew 
the green mosses and tangled shrubbery, and great ferns 
of almost tropical luxuriance. Here lay the trees that 
had died and fallen, but which by reason of size and 
the dampness were many, many years in crumbling 
into mould. So encumbered was the grourul with the 
rough, rank mass of decay and so thick was the under- 
growth that one would find the task of pushing a way 
through well nigh impossible. 

The wilderness was sober and almost silent. Some- 
times a bird sang, sometimes a squirrel chattered. In 
one glade a dogwood hadopenedsome scattered blossoms, 
and I saw occasional wake-robins — wild lilies, they 
were called locally, and a few skunk cabbage plants, 
each thrusting up a great yellow flower from amid the 
green leaves. 



270 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

Presently I came to a chopper's camp in a clearing. 
How sorry it did look! — a group of board shanties 
amid a stark, staring desolation of brush and a few 
standing dead trees, while back behind was nature's 
green forest temple. Yet though nature had been ages 
in upbuilding, man would soon bring the slender pillars 
and graceful arches tumbling to earth, and their like 
would be seen no more in that place forever. I kept 
on, following the railroad in its sinuous way through 
the forest. Now, the land on either side had been cut 
over, and it was not long before I could hear on ahead 
the light steady blows of axes and at frequent intervals 
the throbbing and hissing of some horrible steam 
monster. This monster proved to be a donkey engine 
hauling logs to the loading place. It was firmly fas- 
tened to several standing trees and it dragged the logs 
by means of a stout wire cable. What a snorting, 
thunderous creature it was, and how startling the 
sudden screeches of its whistle. The very trees might 
well have fallen in terror at the racket it made. The 
energy it displayed was astonishing as it brought the 
great logs crashing through the woods over the hillocks 
and through the hollows, scraping off the bark and 
smearing them all over with mud. Once on the landing 
platform the log was released and by means of another 
cable the engine rolled it on to one of the waiting cars. 




Starting to jell a giant cedar 



On the Shores of Puget Sound 271 

A Httle farther up in the woods the men were felling 
trees. Two worked together. The trees grow very 
large at the base, and for the first ten feet taper rapidly. 
To save time they are cut well up above where the 
great sinews reach out to grip the earth. Six feet is 
perhaps a usual height, but I saw old stumps on the 
lowlands of twice that altitude. The cedar stumps 
continue sound indefinitely, and many years perhaps 
after the choppers have done their work and the fires 
have burned the brush, these stumps are cut into fifty- 
two inch lengths and split up into shingle bolts that 
look like short heavy pieces of cord wood. " But it ain't 
first-class material," explained one man. "The grain 
is any way and every way, and there's a good deal of 
complaint about the shingles we're turning out." 

When preparing to fell a tree each of the two choppers 
makes a notch on opposite sides of the trunk about 
three feet from the ground and inserts a short board 
that has on the end a sharp upturned edge of iron. 
The iron catches, and the board projects horizontally. 
On these supports the choppers stand, and they per- 
haps will cut other notches and insert boards and go 
up a stage or two higher. The task of severing the 
trunk is begun by making an undercut which will 
bring the tree down in a particular direction, and then 
they finish from the other side with a long saw. 



272 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

The trees sometimes have a diameter of a dozen feet. 
The cedars, in particular, reach a vast girth, and in 
the valley by the roadside was one with a circumference 
at the ground of sixty-three feet, and near by was 
another that had a gothic arch cut through it affording 
easy passage for a person on horseback. But the 
tallest trees are the firs. Two hundred feet is a very 
moderate height and some shoot up to above three 
hundred. The fall of one of the monsters, when the 
woodsmen have cut through its base, is something 
appalling. As the tree begins to give, the sawyers 
hustle down from their perch and seek a safe distance. 
Then they look upward along the giant column and 
listen. "She's workin' all the time," says one. 

"Yes," agrees the other, "you can hear her talkin';" 
and he gives a loud cry of "Timber!" to warn any 
fellow-laborers who may be in the neighborhood. 

The creaking and snapping increase, and the tree 
swings slowly at first, but soon with tremendous 
rapidity and crashes down through the forest to the 

earth. There is a flying of bark and broken branches 
and the air is filled with slow-settling dust. The men 
climb on the prostaate giant and walk along the broad 
pathway of the trunk to see how it lies. What pigmies 
they seem amid the mighty trees around! The ancient 
and lofty forest could well look down on them and 
despise their short-lived insignificance; yet their per- 



On the Shores of Puget Sound 273 

sistence and ingenuity are irresistible, and the woodland 
is doomed. 

To the rear of those who do the felling are the 
buckets. They work singly and cut off the limbs and 
saw the trunks into lengths. They climb about in a 
chaos of wreckage, sometimes well up in the air, some- 
times down on the ground out of sight. "When I 
hailed from the East out here," said one worker, "and 
they put me to bucking, I thought that was a pretty 
lonesome job. It didn't seem like a hull lot o' fun for 
t)ne man to start with a long wiggling saw cutting off 
a log seven or eight feet through. But that's all right 
now I've got used to it." 

Perhaps the best paid wilderness worker is the hook 
tender who attaches the donkey engine cable to the 
logs. His is a dangerous task and he is paid four 
dollars or more a day. The head fallers get three and 
a half, the second fallers three and a quarter, and the 
swampers who delve about clearing a path for the 
railroad receive two and a half. Every man comes to 
camp with his own blankets, and he pays five dollars 
a week for board. "There's quite a takeoff in that," 
one man in the valley, who had himself been a chopper, 
explained to me; "but they have the best of food 
and a first-class cook. It would do your heart good to 
eat with 'em. I've stopped at many a hotel, but never 
had food served yet that would come up to what they 



274 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

have in the logging camps. The lumbermen won't 
stay no time at all unless they are well fed/' 

The buildings at the camp I visited in the woods had 
roofs and sides of a single thickness of unplaned boards. 
In the men's home quarters were bunks in a double 
tier along the walls — mere boxes with a continuous 
seat down below along the front. Each man fixed up 
some shelves to suit himself around the inside of the 
bunk for containing his belongings, and on the floor 
underneath were thrown the surplus boots and other 
articles not especially valued. Every projection and 
cross piece was hung full of duds. In the middle of the 
room stood a stout stove and a long table. This 
building was home to the men the year through, for 
they continue cutting in winter and summer alike. 

Their chief recreation is to go to town on Saturday 
nights. As the man I have already quoted explained, 
"They've got money, and they just blow it in. That 
there is' the logger style of it. If they saved instead of 
spending they'd all be rich. There's no places of 
amusement in the town. They can go to the library 
and sit down or go to a hotel and sit down, but that 
don't suit 'em. No, they either get drunk or go to church. 
Some take in both. I've seen 'em at church pretty 
well loaded. 

"Now, I want to tell you, my friend, they wear good 
clothes when they go to town. Say! you'd take 'ern 



On the Shores of Puget Sound 275 

more for clerks and professional men than loggers. 
Of course some don't give a cent how they dress, but 
that's not usual. 

"Saturday nights 'bout 'leven or twelve o'clock you 
hear 'em returnin' along the road. Mostly they hire 
a rig and ride to the camp, eight or ten fellers to a 
team. Oh, they're sporty! There's nothing too good 
for the logger. Take 'em as a whole they're the best 
class of men I ever run up against. They're all nation- 
alities, some Americans, some Canadians and a good 
many Scandinavians. Yes, they're pretty darn well 
mixed. The loggers are generous and always take up a 
collection if someone is hurt in the woods. That don't 
happen often considerin' the danger, but when a man 
does get it he gets it proper." 

The region I was visiting was in many respects ideal 
farming country with its rich soil, near markets and 
facilities for transportation. The crops of potatoes and 
other vegetables and cereals are wonderful, and great 
quantities are produced of strawberries, raspberries 
and blackberries of the finest quality. However, as 
one local dweller said, "You can't get anywhere but 
that there's something wrong with the country, I don't 
care where it is. It's damp here, and that's bad for 
the rheumatism; but the main thing I don't like is 
that the land sells for more than it's worth. Cleared 
farm land within three or four miles of the town goes 



276 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

at from a hundred to two hundred dollars an acre, and 
that's too much." 

I noticed in a circular sent out to advertise the region 
it was stated specifically that they have no mosquitoes 
and no thunderstorms. Like most circulars for Eastern 
readers sent from the Pacific Coast this describes a 
paradise which does not exist. They have both mos- 
quitoes and thunderstorms in the Puget Sound country, 
though in most seasons and in most sections these are 
quite mild. "But the thunderstorms we had last 
summer,'* said one informant, "was heavy and no 
mistake. They seemed to skip us right here though, 
and the ground got awful dry. I'd see a storm comin' 
up black as tar, and it would make me boiling mad to 
watch it swing off over the hills where it wa'n't needed 
and leave us as dry as ever." 

Land that I called cleared seemed almost non- 
existent. By keeping a sharp lookout I did now and 
then observe a clean field, but nearly all the farms were 
very much encumbered with stumps and brush. There 
are stumps even when the land is cultivated, black and 
massive, dotting the fields like gravestone memorials 
to the dead forest. Often stumps were standing in the 
dooryards close about the homes, some of them nearly 
as tall as the buildings. "I tell you what I seen," a 
native remarked to me. "In my pasture there's a 
hollow stump so big that sometimes five or six cattle 




55 



On the Shores of Puget Sound 277 

will get into it as a sort of shelter. By gol! that sounds 
like a fish story, but it ain't. 

"There's so many stumps and snags and such a lot 
of brush in this country I sometimes think God Almighty 
never intended it to be cleared at all. In starting 
the work the first thing is the brush-cutting — slashing, 
we call it. The brush is left piled up in windrows, and 
when it's dry you burn it; but it don't burn clean and 
the fire leaves a lot of stub ends besides all the charred 
logs and other large pieces, so you are in a nice job. 
You can be just as black as you want to be in the 
picking up." 

The stumps are the most serious part of the problem. 
The effort to obliterate a really big one by burning and 
hacking and digging may continue for years. To put 
a charge of powder or dynamite underneath is the 
quickest way. That breaks it up and loosens it. Then, 
by hitching horses on to the fragments, the great root 
fangs can be jerked forth from the ground, but there 
will still be an enormous hole to fill. The entire 
expense of clearing the land of both brush and stumps 
will average about seventy-five dollars an acre. 

I asked a man in the town if the farmers were pros- 
perous. "Sure thing!" he replied. "They're well fixed, 
and lots of 'em have money in the bank." 

But those black spectral stumps lingered in my mind, 
and I could not dispel the feeling that the farmers were 



278 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

wrestling with the wilderness, and that their prosperity 
was of the future rather than of the present. Besides, 
their buildings were small and often poor, and I said 
so to the town man. 

"Well," he responded, "in the East when a man has 
made money, the first thing he does is to improve his 
surroundings so he can take some pride in 'em; but 
here they don't seem to care much about that. They're 
content to live in shacks, and there ain't much to their 
barns except a roof which is just good enough to turn 
water off." 

One day I was caught by a light shower, and stopped 
at a wayside home. A woman and some ragged 
children came to the door and I was ushered into the 
best room. It was a battered, barren apartment with 
board walls and ceiling. The most notable articles of 
furniture were a stove, a sewing machine, and a sofa 
with an old quilt on it. The walls were adorned with 
three enlarged portraits staring out of heavy, dingy 
frames. 

The woman exhumed some photographs for my 
entertainment, wiping them one by one with her apron 
as she passed them to me. They were much the worse 
for wear. "This one is of a logging crew," she ex- 
plained; "and this here is of the last graduating class 
from the high school; and that there is of two of my 



On the Shores of Puget Sound 279 

nieces in Seatt e. I been washing today," she added 
with a sigh, "and Fm completely done out." 

The shower was soon over. In a near field the man 
of the house was zigzagging around among the black 
stumps with a pair of old horses ploughing. He did not 
stop for the rain. When I started on I went through 
the field and spoke with him. He seemed to be in no 
hurry and he let his horses stand while he went and 
sat down on a pile of rubbish that he had cleared off 
the land and thrown in a great windrow to serve as a 
fence. Then he got out his jackknife and began 
whittling. 

"I landed here twenty years ago," said he, "and 1 
swore I wouldn't stay if they was to give me the hull 
country, but now Fm content with a very little of it, 
and there never was better land anywhere than this 
right here. It can't be discounted. The region was 
at first all covered with heavy woods. The river and 
the cricks was the thoroughfares, and there was swarms 
of Indians camped up and down 'em. Timber wa'n't 
worth what it is at present, and there's been more 
spoilt here than a little. We'd pick out the finest trees, 
cut 'em down, take the best part of each log and leave 
the rest. We didn't use to look at hemlock at all. 

"The cutting-oflF of the country has made quite a 
difference in the weather. We've had a terrible fine 
winter and spring so far this year. But we used to 



280 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

have mist day after day. We called it Oregon mist — 
missed Oregon and hit here. It was thick enough to 
cut into chunks; yet you might be out in it all day and 
hardly get wet through. My gracious! the mist was so 
bad in July and August it was almost impossible to 
cure our hay. Late years, instead of mist we have 
rain, and then it comes off clear. 

"This is a great country for fish. Heavens and earth! 
when I come here we didn't think much of salmon — they 
was too common. We appreciate them now. At 
this season they are a little scarce and you have to 
pay as much for 'em in our town as in any old place; 
but, later, in the salmon run you can buy a ten or 
twelve pounder for fifteen cents. 

"There's one thing I'm glad of — they say we ain't 
in the earthquake zone, and yet I'm not sure about 
that. Back here in the woods is a bluff that's full of 
petrified clams and other things which was once in 
the sea. How did that bluff get where it is unless it 
was hove there sometime ^ Earthquake zone be 
darned! You can't tell me we ain't in it when I've 
seen them petrified clams in that high bluff. 

"I've got some first-class land, but I could show you 
other land in this region that's as poor as this is good. 
I've had a chance to sample some of it myself. Once I 
bought thirty-five acres on the upland, and I had a 
blamed nice little farmhouse there and as fine a well 




Burning brush 



On the Shores of Puget Sound 281 

of water as ever was outdoors. In the spring I started 
my crops, and everything looked as green and nice as 
it does here, but there was hardpan close below the 
surface, and in June my crops just pinched right off and 
died. The next winter a man come along and looked 
at the place thinkin' of buyin*. We agreed on the 
price, and I was all in a tremble till I got the money for 
fear he*d back out. He gave me eight hundred and 
fifty dollars and I bought down here. I can raise more 
on one acre of this land than he can on his hull place. 

"A good deal of the high ground is all right, and to 
hear the land agents talk you might think it was as 
good as this in the valley. You don't get a fair idea 
from them. It takes this bottom land nearly all the 
time to do what they say land up there will do. My 
farm here gets along pretty well without fertilizer year 
after year, by rotating. On high ground, though, 
you're obliged to enrich the soil if you want decent crops. 

"Not long ago a party of homeseekers come to our 
town from Minnesota, and they was met at the station 
by a lot of land-sharks who showed 'em around. On 
the borders of the town I noticed one of the sharks 
pointing out a farm field and sayin' to a visitor, 'Why, 
man alive! if you was to pay five hundred dollars an 
acre for that you'd double your money in two years.* 

"*What'd I raise?' says the homeseeker. 



282 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

" *You could do it with potatoes,' says the shark. 
*Our land'Il produce twenty tons to the acre/ 

"Well, it wa'n't my business to chip in, but I couldn't 
help remarkin', 'Say, I can't hit that. If you've got 
any such land to sell I'd like to buy it.' 

"Hops have been a great crop here, but raisin' 'em 
is just like gambling. The price goes up and down so 
uncertain that perhaps they'll make you rich, and 
perhaps they'll make you poor. There's one valley I 
know of went into hops, and all but two men in that 
valley have lost their ranches. It was the same way 
with tobacco when I lived back in Wisconsin. At first 
we made big money and thought we'd discovered a 
gold mine. Everybody went into it heavy, and pretty 
soon the price dropped way down out of sight. It was 
a pity, by gracious! You had the tobacco on your 
hands, and you couldn't eat the stuff. All you could do 
was to chew it and spit it out, or smoke it; and my old 
dad was put right to the wall. 

"But then there's things right here that don't turn 
out any better. Two years ago I tried the poultry 
racket. I thought I'd go into the business in a large 
way and make some money. So I bought an incubator 
and paid seventy-two dollars for it and set four hundred 
eggs. I got twenty-five chickens. Then I tried another 
four hundred eggs and got thirty chickens. That was 
enough for me and I put the incubator away. My 



On the Shores of Puget Sound 283 

hens do good work hatching, but in a few days after a 
hen brings off a brood, the weasels, skunks and rats get 
busy and you won't find a confounded thing around 
the place only dead chickens. 

" I was some afraid when I settled here that the river 
would carry off all my land. The banks used to wash 
badly, but since the trees have been cut off the channel 
ain't changed so much. You see a tall tree partly 
undermined by water would get weaving in the wind 
and loosen up a lot of soil that would wash away in 
no time then. You notice how high up off the ground 
my house is perched. That's on account of floods. 
One November the water covered the second doorstep, 
but the flood is a great help to us fellers. It fertilizes 
the land. I thought it would ruin my potatoes that 
November. I had 'em all in a pit with a tent-shaped 
roof over 'em banked up with turf. When the flood 
was at its highest the top of the pit stuck out of the 
water like a muskrat's house. I spoke to the neighbors, 
and they said, *The water'll seep right off. Leave 
your potatoes alone. Don't monkey with 'em, and 
they'll be all right.' Well, it didn't hurt 'em a dog-gone 
bit, and I never lost a potato except some in the ground 
that wa'n't dug. Those was just as mushy as if they'd 
been frozen. 

"In 1896 we had what we called the big he freshet. 
That there surpassed anything the old-timers had ever 



284 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

seen, and on the low grounds steamers ran all around 
out over the fences and rescued the people. It wasn't 
very nice to be tangled up with a flood like that. A good 
many buildings was carried down the stream and it 
got away with a terrible lot of stock. Tve seen a pig 
floating along on a log in that flood just as calm and nice 
as if he'd been a frog, and it was a comical sight. There's 
a queer animal — Mr. Piggy. You take one that's in 
danger of drowning into a canoe, and it'll lay just as 
quiet as can be. But as soon as you are near enough 
to the shore so it thinks it can spring to land, then 
look out for yourself. They say a pig don't know 
anything, but they wouldn't say so if they'd come as 
near getting a ducking as I have in the way I speak of." 

Every dweller who had been for any length of time 
in the region had a similar fund of picturesque im- 
pressions and experiences. There were clouds mingled 
with the sunshine; yet I think no one who visits the 
Puget Sound country can fail to believe that there is 
before it a great future. The Sound itself makes a 
waterway marvelous in extent and navigable for the 
largest ships. The climate is peculiarly attractive. It 
does not entirely lack vigor, yet the cold is never 
extreme, and there is plentiful moisture. The streams 
flow throughout the year, and the supply of water for 
drinking is abundant and pure. Many great towns 
are growing up along the shore and they have back of 



On the Shores of Puget Sound 285 

them much land of wonderful fertihty. Already a 

network of steam and electric roads have been built 

that reminds one of the populous sections of the East. 

As one man remarked, "You can start from here and 

go anywhere in the world — in any direction, and by 

land or water/* 

Note. — ^The Puget Sound country appeals to the traveller with 
exceptional force. The Sound itself is a magnificent waterway with 
its shore line of eighteen hundred miles; and the larger bordering 
towns are remarkably vigorous and modern and promising, while 
the tributary streams and fertile soil and fine forests prophesy a 
future of unusual prosperity and the maintenance of a very large 
population. 

The first white settlement dates back to 1828. Wars with the 
Indians retarded immigration, but in 1858 the discovery of gold at 
Frazer's River brought an influx of 15,000 persons, many of whom 
became permanent settlers. Nevertheless, the census of 1 870 
reported a population of only 24,000. 

The two largest towns on Puget Sound are Seattle and Tacoma. 
The former, which was named after an Indian chief, was founded in 
1852. The higher parts of the city command splendid views of the 
Olympic Mountains. These mountains are well worth visiting, for 
the scenery is notably striking, and there are magnificent forests 
and many glaciers. 

Tacoma had only 760 Inhabitants in 1880. Many good roads 
lead to the "natural parks'* that begin 6 miles south of the city. 
The parks are carpeted with flowers and contain numerous lakes. 

The nearest of the big snow-capped peaks of the Cascade Range 
is Mt. Ranier, 14,363 feet high. To visit it take the train to Wilke- 
son, 32 miles, and then go on by a bridle-path, 25 miles, to the base 
of the mountain. Like the other isolated peaks of the range, Mt. 
Ranier is an extinct volcano. Two craters at the summit still give 
off heat and sulphurous fumes. 



XIV 

AT THE EDGE OF CANADA 

THE village where I stopped was smack up 
against the Canadian line. It had been recom- 
mended to me as "quite a busy little burg," 
but I could not see that it was very different from 
other small sawmill towns I had observed as I 
looked out of the car window going north. There was 
the same cluster of wooden stores, saloons, churches, 
lodging houses and hotels, and a dribble of residences for 
a mile round about. The house that reached a full mag- 
nificence of two stories was a rarity. Most people were 
content with one story, and the house was small at that. 
Newness and rawness were very apparent, and there 
was a good deal of the makeshift about the dwellings. 
All the home premises were snuggly fenced, and the cows 
and horses were turned loose to browse in the public 
ways and along the railroad tracks and out into the 
surrounding wilds to suit themselves. 

A large sawmill had burned the year before and had 
not been replaced. Many workers had therefore 
moved away, and certain saloons and lodging houses 

286 



At the Edge of Canada 287 

had closed their doors as a consequence. These build- 
ings now were little short of ruinous, with shattered 
windows and other marks of neglect and misuse that 
gave the place a touch of melancholy and decay. On 
my first day, as I sat in the hotel office, I made inquiry 
about conditions, and one man turned to another and 
said, "Well, Bill, the town's havin' a little bit of a boom 
now, ain't it ?" 

"Yes," replied Bill, "it booms nights. I've heard 
it, but I don't see much difference daytimes." 

"Why is it that your vacant buildings look so shaky ?'* 
I asked. "They can't be old." 

"I suppose," responded Bill, "it's because it ain't 
the habit of the country to build substantial. Even a 
nice appearin' building is apt to be cheap and thin 
walled. The paint is about all there is to it." 

By the office stove sat a couple of Germans. They 
just then started discussing a village runaway, and the 
older man said, "Dere vas two horses and a heavy 
wagon. Von bridle camed off and der driver he got 
down to fix it, and an engine tooted. Dot made der 
horses run down der street, and der wagon pole hit a 
telegraph post and broke. Two old peoples vas stand- 
ing on der sidewalk dere." 

"Vas dey hurted ?" asked the listener. 

"Yes," replied the other, "dey vas old peoples and 
easy-going and dey couldn't get out of der vay from 



288 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

nothings. Der voman vas hit in der head. Der horse 
kind o' pawed Hke and hit her mit his front foot." 

"Vas she knocked down .^" inquired the younger 
German. 

"Oh, sure," was the reply, "she vas knocked down 
all right." 

" Dat vas ven der horse put his foot on her, don't it ?" 
said the younger of the two. 

"No," his companion answered, "if he put his foot 
on her den it fix her for goot. She ish all better now." 

The surrounding region was a wide plain varying little 
in level for miles, but it had a fine setting of rugged hills 
and lofty wooded ridges in the distance, and when the 
weather was clear I saw peaks that were white with 
snow. The lowlands were pretty thoroughly cleared 
of valuable timber, yet I was assured that a little farther 
back there was no end of heavy woodland, and that 
the forest had as yet hardly been touched. The forest 
that was in view would have been much finer had it 
not been for the yearly ravaging of the fires. 

"We had one big fire this last March," a man 
explained to me. "That's an unusual time for a fire. 
We commonly get 'em in summer, but this winter was 
very dry. A feller was burning up some brush and the 
fire got away. There was a gale blowing, and it carried 
the flames through the tree tops. The wind would 
catch burning moss and pieces of old dead bark from 




Getting ready to plant potatoes 



At the Edge of Canada 289 

the tall trees and take them a long distance and keep 
the fire spreading. I and two other fellers and a horse 
got cut off by the fire from the logging camp where we 
was workin' and we had to go roundabout in a hurry 
or get burned. The horse was no help and we con- 
cluded to leave it, but the horse follered us. It pushed 
along through the brush close behind and when we 
climbed over a log it would rear up and jump and we 
all reached camp safe. 

"Down at the next village they wet gunny sacks 
and put 'em on the roofs to prevent the houses from 
bein' set on fire by the flyin' sparks. One man lost his 
house and barn and all his cows and was pretty near 
burned himself. Oh, gosh, yes, it was raging! At 
night, looking from here toward the mountains, you 
could see the big blaze away up in the air. Yet it done 
a whole lot of good in places, clearing the land, and 
there was plenty of people who was glad to see the fire 
running over the woods because it would make fine 
pasture." 

During my stay I rambled about the region pretty 
thoroughly, though the walking was far from ideal. 
However, in the opinion of the natives they are blessed 
with excellent roads. I thought them wretched. Deep 
ruts and sudden hollows and mud holes abounded, and 
there were spots where broken stone had been dumped 
on. This stone prevented teams from sinking down 



290 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

out of sight, yet shook you up till your teeth rattled if 
you were in a vehicle. Then, too, there was a good 
deal of corduroy so that the traveller on wheels got 
bumps and jarrings of every variety. 

On one of my walks I overtook two school children, 
a boy and a girl, and we kept on in company for a mile 
or more. The girl's name was "Addie," the boy's 
name, "Fred," and they were near neighbors. Each 
carried a dinner pail, for they lived too far from the 
village to allow them to go home at noon. The boy 
was barefoot and his legs were well daubed with clay 
mud as the result of wading in roadside pools. 

"We've got two tame pigeons in our barn," remarked 
the boy. "Mr. Frye give 'em to us. Oh, Addie, did 
you see that peach tree of ourn this morning .?" 

"Eh-uh," she replied, by which she meant, "No." 

"Well, you ought to stop and look at that tree. 
She'll have peaches on this year. She's just full of 
blossoms." 

"We've got a big red cow," said Addie, turning to 
me; "and that cow'll let you pet her. When she's 
lying down you can get on her back and have a ride. 
I like my old red cow, and her milk is nearly all butter. 
We have another cow named Maud, and her milk 
don't have any cream at all. Maud won't let you pet 
her either, and if you do she will run and beller." 



At the Edge of Canada 291 

"I picked a whole bunch of shootin' stars, yester- 
day," said Fred, "and I brung 'em home and put 'em 
in water. They looked pretty and I'd have tooken 'em 
to school only I forgot. When I was little I picked a 
lot of skunk cabbage blossoms, but they smelt awful. 
They stinked and I threw them away. I don't never 
pick them any more." 

"Once I fell in the crick near our house," Addie 
affirmed, "and my brother pulled me out. I didn't 
get whipped. My mother only scolded me." 

While the children were telling me the story of their 
lives after this fashion a family of small pigs came 
scampering along the road toward us with a dog 
barking at their heels. My companions hastened to 
share in the excitement, and they seemed not to care 
much whether they chased the pigs or the dog. But 
they soon rejoined me, and the boy said, "We had some 
little pigs in a pen last year, and I got in there and was 
running 'em and one bit my finger." 

"I don't see but that there is as much going on here 
as where I live," I observed. 

"Where do you live .^" they asked. 

"In Massachusetts," I replied. "Do you know 
where that is .?" 

"Eh-uh," Addie responded, "but I know where 
Seattle is and where Portland is," 



292 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

"And I know where Massachusetts is," declared 
the boy. "It's across the ocean." 

"What ocean .^" I inquired, but I had reached the 
limit of his information. 

The children's homes were out among the blackened 
stumps and the ragged woodland as yet uncleared of 
brush. The dwellings were small, paintless, and rude 
in their surroundings and all their appointments. Yet 
the everyday work and play, the farm animals, and 
the changing seasons held plenty of charm for the 
children and they were content. Their elders possibly 
saw a darker and duller side. However, they were 
spurred on by their hopes for the future. They were 
constantly winning in their fight with the wilderness, 
clearing up and improving the land, setting out fruit 
trees, increasing the number of their domestic animals 
so that the time seemed coming when they would be 
assured of a good and valuable farm and a comfortable 
income. As for present discomforts, I doubt if these 
occasioned any special chafing, for these were part 
and parcel of the prevailing way of living in the region. 

It was interesting to watch a man ploughing new 
ground and see how irregularly he had to dodge about 
to avoid stumps and snags, and how constantly the 
horses were jerked to a standstill by some obstruction 
the plough had encountered. "Yes," said a resident, 
a former dweller in Tennessee, whom I accosted at 



i;-yrrrrr. 




•45i*^ 




Visiting at the gate 



At the Edge of Canada 293 

v.his task, "thar's a right smart of green roots in hyar, 
and a heap of fern roots, too." 

His small boy was busy pulling out such roots as the 
plough loosened and piling them up to burn, and in a 
few days they would have a crop of oats started. 

In a neighboring field a man with the help of his 
wife was gathering up fragments of stumps on a wooden 
sledge and making great bonfires of them. "This is 
spare time work," said he. "Tve got some good cows 
and a cream separator, and we're makin' butter enough 
to supply us with the money to pay our living expenses. 
So when there's no hurry about the other things we 
clear up the land and we are makin' what will one of 
these days be a ranch we can sell for a high price. In 
the rough you can buy this land cheap, and by clearing 
it gradually at odd times your labor don't mean any 
real outlay." 

I was about to resume my walk, but the man said his 
wife was just starting to the house to get dinner ready 
and invited me to stay and eat with them. He was 
insistent, and I accepted the friendly hospitality. When 
we left the field he drove his horse to the barn — a good- 
sized spreading structure, yet without a sawed stick in 
it. The entire material had been split out of cedar — the 
beams and studding, the rafters and shingles and the 
boards. Some of these boards were eight or ten feet 
long, and their even thickness and the neatness of the 



294 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

whole job were surprising. The barn was nearly empty 
except for a little wild hay from the marshes and a 
few bags of apples. The fruit had lain there on the 
floor all winter, and it was still sound and eatable, 
though a trifle withered. 

"When I was new here," said the man, "I thought 
a building like this was the dog-gonest thing Fd ever 
seen in my life. It was quite a cur'osity, by George! 
But such buildings are common all around, and there's 
a good many split-out houses, too. Say, it's astonishing, 
ain't it, the lumber and boards that can be made without 
a saw ever touching 'em ? The road from here to town, 
four miles, used to be pretty near all of corduroy split 
out of cedar. They've turnpiked the road lately and 
covered most of the cedar out of sight, but there's still 
left a corduroy bridge one hundred feet long over a 
low vret place. 

"Cedar is useful in a good many ways. It makes 
the best fence rails in the world — ^you bet your life it 
does. It just naturally won't rot out, and the rails are 
so light you can throw them all around. Give me 
cedar rather than firwood fencing every time. A 
firwood rail that's let lie on the ground — he'll go — won't 
last over night hardly. Do you-all use any of our 
Washington cedar shingles in the East .? If you get 
Qur number ones you won't do any kicking." 




A corduroy bridge 



At the Edge of Canada 295 

The farmer's dwelling was a little brown house in a 
large yard that was nearly filled with apple trees just 
coming into bloom. At the back door was a pump, 
but we washed for dinner in a corner of the kitchen 
where there was an oilcloth covered stand with an 
earthen jar of water on it and a tin cup to serve for a 
dipper. The children came from school, the baby 
woke up and we all sat down to eat. The repast was 
plentiful and good, with pork and potatoes as the 
mainstays. After we finished, the man and I sat talking 
while the wife cleared the table. Their oldest son was 
a school teacher. " He's been in four diflFerent places," 
said the man, "and every time he's had a regular tough 
school to handle. Children go to school all the way 
from seven to twenty-one years of age, and there's often 
some pretty wild kids among 'em. Sometimes they 
whip the teacher, and sometimes they lock him outside. 
Yes, they'll plague a teacher to death, and the school 
gets played out. At my son's school, though, there's 
very little trouble. He has a knack at managing. This 
winter I believe one big boy undertook to whip him, 
but my son, in spite of being small, is active, and he just 
collared the lad and flopped him on the floor flat on his 
back. Since then things have been all right. 

" Last year we had trouble in this little school in our 
own deestrict. The children got to having a big time 
and had like to have tore the schoolhouse to pieces. 



296 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

They done just as they pleased, and the teacher, she'd 
sit down and cry. She was a nice girl, but she was just 
that tender-hearted she couldn't use any force to 
compel a kid to behave himself. She was easy in a good 
many ways. The ringing of the first bell she was 
supposed to do at half past eight, but she'd ring it 
according to the time she happened to get through 
breakfast at the place where she boarded — maybe one 
morning at eight and perhaps next day at nine. We 
have three school directors in each deestrict, but one 
of 'em was away, and the other two couldn't agree what 
to do. You see one of these two was an old bach', and 
I think he had a notion to try to marry the girl. So he 
wouldn't hear of her bein' turned ofi^. But finally she 
resigned. 

"Of course the boys were a good deal to blame. 
They done a little too much, but they wa'n't really bad, 
because this new teacher who's come in has no trouble 
at all. We have a nine months' school beginning about 
the first of September, and it keeps continuous except 
for a week at Christmas and another week at Easter. 
We pay fifty dollars a month. Usually the teacher 
takes care of the schoolhouse, but once in a while we 
get hold of one who won't build the fires. Then we 
hire a janitor, but that's a thing we don't do unless 
we have to." 



At the Edge of Canada 297 

"Do the people in this neighborhood go to church 
in the town ?" I inquired. 

"They ain't great hands to go to church anywhere," 
he replied; "but once in a while we have meetings in 
the schoolhouse. There's an Advent Church in the 
town, and whenever the preacher gets short of money 
he comes out here and holds services for a few Sunday 
afternoons. On the Saturday before he starts in he'll 
drive around from house to house to announce that 
there'll be a meetin'. He's about two-thirds or three- 
fourths crazy in my opinion. He ain't married, and 
you can take any man, I don't care who he is, and let 
him live for years all by himself out in this wilderness, 
and he will get a little off. Under them circumstances 
a man is sure to have very peculiar streaks and imagine 
things ought to go a certain way. Yes, and a man 
bachin' here in the woods is pretty likely not to be able 
to get along a minute with his neighbors. Well, speak- 
in' about our meetin's, at the end of 'em there's a canvas 
made of the homes and we fix the preacher up with 
both money and food supplies. 

"That reminds me the pigs are squealing for their 
dinner, and I must go and feed them." 

The rancher went off toward the pigpen and I betook 
myself to the highway. Along either side of the road 
was an unending series of shallow, slimy pools alive 
with wriggling tadpoles, and these pools or the warm 



298 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

neighboring banks were a resort of numerous " streaked" 
snakes, as they are called in Oregon, but which we in 
the East speak of as "striped/' The snakes slipped 
away at my approach into the weeds and brush, darting 
out their forked tongues warningly. 

As I walked on I observed occasional log houses, 
survivals of the rude days of the first settlers. They 
were low and small and looked like poor quarters, but 
there was one that seemed to me quite delightful. The 
roof made a wide projection at one end over the gable 
and door below, and relieved the architectural bareness. 
Vines had been trained to grow up to the eaves, and a 
patch of berry bushes close by made the cabin nestle 
in its surroundings very prettily. A path led away to 
a smokehouse a stone's throw from the dwelling, and 
this smokehouse was made of a large hollow log set 
on end with a roof put on the top and a door at the side. 
A steep wooded cliff rose a few rods distant and made 
the scene both wild and picturesque. 

The woman of the house said the family had come 
from Chicago. "We didn't think to live in a place like 
this," she explained, "and when the children would 
look from the car windows as we were coming and see 
little log cabins of this sort they would cry out, " What's 
that — a chicken coop .?" 

While we were talking, a little girl appeared from 
around the corner of the house. She had been after 



^1 



At the Edge of Canada 299 

some strayed calves and now had got them together in 
an adjoining lane. "I saw a Chinee rooster in the 
woods/' said she. 

By that I understood she had seen a male Chinese 
pheasant. These birds have been introduced com- 
paratively recently, but are becoming numerous and 
are a valuable addition to the wild game. I often 
heard their sharp double squawk in my rambles. The 
little girl affirmed that they were, "awful nice eatin'." 

I was late in returning to the town. The sun had set 
and the frogs were croaking in lively chorus in the 
village puddles. Some of the young men were out in 
the grass of the broad main street pitching horseshoe 
quoits. I could hear the call of children at play on 
the byways; there was a soft tinkle of cow bells and 
the clack of footsteps on the wooden walks. Low in 
the west hung the slender golden scimiter of the new 
moon, and in the east, above the dark nearer ranges, 
rose a lonely mountain peak, pure and white and 
beautiful against the dusky sky. 

Note. — Any hamlet like this, recently carved out of the wilderness, 
has a peculiar fascination, and such are numerous in the far North- 
west. The traveller with a liking for what is simple and rustic cannot 
do better than to pick out one at random and stay at least a day or 
two. Life there is more comprehensible than in a big town; individu- 
ality is more marked in its dwellers, and you come in contact with 
real life in a way that entertains and instructs. 



XV 



THE NIAGARA OF THE WEST 

THE Shoshone Falls on the Snake River in 
Southern Idaho ranks among the most in- 
posing falls in the world; yet it has received 
from the tourists thus far scant attention. Very little 
exact information as to its character is to be had, and I 
found the railway people, both in the offices and on the 
trains woefully lacking in knowledge of how to get to 
the great waterfall. Thus it was that I stopped off 
from the train one night at Shoshone, supposing I was 
to go from there a twenty-five mile journey by stage to 
the Falls the next day; but I found the stage had long 
been discontinued and that I must travel a roundabout 
route by rail, a distance of one hundred miles. 

I had plenty of time to look around the village the 
following morning before an available train came. 
It was a place of a thousand inhabitants, and in addition 
to the homes and group of stores there was a courthouse, 
school building, several small churches and a newspaper 
office. A western town has to be very diminutive 
indeed not to have a newspaper, and where one can 

300 



The Niagara of the West 301 

exist, a rival usually gains a foothold. Then there is 
a fight — an endless war of words. Even in the largest 
of the coast cities the papers have a curious boyish 
habit of pitching into each other, and they give their 
rivals their due with no light hand. You are surprised, 
on reading what is said of a competing paper, that it 
can continue to exist when it shows such incompetence, 
idiocy and general cussedness, and you are informed 
that its office boy is superior in sense and ability to 
the editor-in-chief. 

The settlement was huddled very snuggly together 
as if in dread of the open loneliness of the surrounding 
prairie, but really, I suppose, to take advantage of the 
town water system. A creek flows through the village 
and makes it possible to irrigate and have green lawns 
and flourishing gardens. 

Round about was the prairie clad with gray sagebrush 
that seemed to extend to the ends of the earth. Inter- 
mingled with the sage were scattered tufts of bunch 
grass and low weeds and blossoms, but these growths 
fell far short of covering the nakedness of the ground, 
and the region looked the more somber because it had 
been overflowed with lava in the remote past, and 
rough fragments and shattered ledges were everywhere. 
It appeared as if it never had been and never could be 
of any use to mankind; yet I saw a few village cows 
nibbling on the barrens. Evidently they contrived to 



302 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

pick up a Hving, and I was told that many large herds 
of cattle and flocks of sheep grazed over the plains, 
and that in places along the stream were expanses of 
soil where flourishing fruit ranches had been estab- 
lished. The ranchers came from long distances to 
trade at the town, and they and the county business 
made the settlement. 

The town was engirdled with rubbish, and it was clear 
that whoever wanted to dispose of old tin cans, worn- 
out household utensils and garbage simply conveyed 
the waste material to the outskirts and dumped it. 
In this forlorn outlying section was the cemetery. It 
was right on the open prairie and looked as if it had 
been forgotten. Two or three graves were marked by 
marble slabs, but the rest were either unmarked or 
had wooden head pieces on which the lettering was 
fast being eff'aced by the weather. A few of the graves 
were inclosed by broken fences of palings or wire, and 
some had lava blocks heaped up around them. While 
I was poking about here I disturbed a Jack rabbit. 
As soon as he saw me he laid back his long ears and 
was off" through the sagebrush like a streak. 

My train came presently and I went on to Minidoka 
and then took a branch road to Twin Falls City. This 
branch road had been called into existence within a 
year by the irrigating of the tract of country through 
which it ran. Naturally, the region was a sagebrush 




0^ 



The Niagara of the West 303 

plain rising and falling in long swells and broken here 
and there with ragged gullies. But an irrigation 
company was now ready to furnish water for three 
hundred thousand acres, and the government was 
preparing to supply a flow for half as much more 
territory, so the entire fifty miles along the railroad had 
suddenly become populous; for there are always plenty 
of people adrift in these newer regions who are on the 
watch for chances to make their fortunes quickly and 
easily, and they rush into any district that is opened up. 
Some become permanent residents. Others sell out 
after a while and seek still newer fields of opportunity. 
Many settlers are from the middle West where land 
has become expensive, and where a man making a 
fresh start has usually a prolonged struggle to own a 
farm. If he is adventurous or unstable he turns his 
eyes to the undeveloped lands in remote regions which 
are to be had cheap and which he can make valuable 
by the labor of his own hands. 

As a result of these tendencies I saw the cabins of 
the homesteaders dotting the landscape far out into 
the dreary desert on either side of the railroad. "When 
I first come here a year ago," said the brakeman on the 
train, "there was nothin' doin' at all, and now the coun- 
try is thickly populated. No crops will go in this year 
on the government property, because the canals ain't 
finished. The people living on the land have no chance 



304 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

for any income from their claims. All they can do 
is to make sure of 'em. You're obliged to spend part 
of your time on your property and put up a house and 
make some improvements. Usually a man's house is 
a one-room shack — ^just a little board shed as cheap 
as it can be made. Even then it costs seventy-five or 
one hundred dollars, for all the lumber has to come 
in by railroad and it is expensive. 

"About the only work that can be done on the land 
is to grub up the sagebrush and build fences. Some 
hack at the sage by hand, but most hire a machine 
which claws it out at a cost of three dollars an acre. 
After that job is done the brush has to be piled up and 
burned. 

"There ain't many who can afford to stay con- 
tinuously on their places. They've got to go and rustle 
to get money to make payments, and they put in most 
of their time workin' on the railroad, or in some town, 
or on a ranch. If a man has a family he leaves them 
to hold down the claim. I've got a claim myself, and 
so have several other fellows workin' on the train. 

"This country is said to assay ninety per cent, 
sagebrush and sand, and ten per cent. wind. You're 
sure to have plenty of wind on such a big open plain 
as this, but the soil is rich, and when we get crops 
growing, things will look very different. Some say the 
hot winds blowing from the desert will make us trouble. 



The Niagara of the West 305 

and that with the fine sand they carry along they will 
bruise the foliage of our crops and spoil everything. 
The better the irrigation is, they say, the more tender 
the crops will grow and the worse they'll be damaged; 
but Fm willing to risk it. 

"When I was a boy I lived in New York City. A 
fellow is only an atom back there. If you lose your 
place somebody else is all ready to step into it and then 
you feel as if you were out of the race forever. You're 
obliged to scrap like a cuss for everything you get. 
There's room out here," and he shrugged his shoulders 
expressively. "I'd rather be a big frog in a little puddle 
than a little frog in a big puddle. This is better'n 
New York any turn in the road. If you fall down 
there's plenty of chances to start again, and the life 
I is not so bound by custom. Things are free and easy. 
It suits me, and you won't find many people who get 
used to the ways here who would care to go back. 
With industry and health and a square jaw there's no 
reason in God's world why a man shouldn't get along. 

" But of course not everybody sees things the same 
as I do. My mother come out here and stayed a year 
and then packed up bag and baggage and hiked it 
back to New York. She thought this country was 
lonesome." 

Now and then the train stopped at a little town 
consisting of a cluster of shops, saloons and homes, all 



306 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

perfectly new and distressingly bare of vegetation. 
There were no embowering trees and vines and none 
of the repose that comes with age. Twin Falls was 
hke the other villages, but larger and carefully laid out 
with broad streets, and it even had its public park. 
Everywhere in and around the town were the irriga- 
tion channels, some wide, some narrow, but all of them 
filled with a muddy flow of water, and it was this water 
which was to make the dead desert a land of plenty. 

The town had started in the sagebrush and within 
about a twelve-month had grown from nothing to a place 
of over one thousand inhabitants. The man who had 
been there a full year was an old settler — a pioneer. 
This was to be the metropolis of the irrigated country, 
and it already had some substantial buildings, and the 
place resounded with the blows of hammers and the 
clink of trowels. As a whole, small structures were 
the predominant ones, and shanty houses, often scarcely 
larger than a good-sized dry-goods box, were common. 
Some people were dwelling in tents, or in the upper ! 
portion of a covered wagon that had been lifted off 
the wheels and set on the ground. 

There was much coming and going of teams on the 
dusty highways, trade was lively in the numerous 
stores, and some business seemed to be doing in the 
two diminutive wooden banks. One corner in the 
heart of the town was being utilized at the time I 




A Jack rabbit in sight 



The Niagara of the West 307 

arrived as a horse mart. Of the creatures exhibited 
T observed especially a pair of large handsome horses 
hitched at the borders of the board walk. They were 
in charge of a peaked little man in shirt sleeves who 
hovered about proclaiming their merits, and, between 
whiles, expectorating tobacco juice. His favorite claim 
with regard to his team was: "There ain't no 
pimples on 'em anywhere. They're good sound horses, 
one of the finest driving teams in this country. It ain't 
often you get two such as these." 

"What price do you hold 'em for .?" someone asks. 

"Three hundred and a quarter," is the reply. "Now 
ain't they the prettiest things you ever laid your eyes 
on .? They're a well-bred team and just as kind — ^why! 
I've gone out to the barn and found my little boys on 
them horses' backs and wallowing all over 'em and 
never getting harmed a mite." 

"It would cost a good deal to take care of 'em," 
said the prospective customer. "Feed is pretty ex- 
pensive." 

"They ain't heavy eaters," responded the trader. 
"You give 'em a little oats and hay and they'll keep 
fat all the time. They are good to work, or for driving 
either. If a man wants to go to town he can just hitch 
'em up and they'll take him. They're a fine team any- 
where. See how they're built. There ain't a pimple 
on 'em." 



3o8 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

The Shoshone Falls was seven miles distant and I 
decided to walk thither. The route was not very direct, 
for I had to follow the right-angled roads with which 
the country had been laid oflF. An uneasy wind blew, 
and every now and then a rotary current would start 
and catch up a flurry of dust. Sometimes the dust 
would rise in a vague brown column hundreds of feet 
high, and I frequently had several of these wandering 
columns in sight at the same time. Far off on the 
horizon, dim with silvery haze, were ranges of moun- 
tains and two or three peaks white with snow. The 
heat shimmered over the plain, and the glare of the 
sun was a pain to the eyes. I was soon very thirsty 
and the dust and wind parched my lips, but I plodded 
on, for I had doubts concerning the drinking water to 
be supplied by the houses along the way. 

The settlers were busy taming the land by tearing 
out and burning the sagebrush, and by ploughing, 
harrowing and scraping their holdings into a smooth 
grade for irrigating. Some of the crops were in the 
ground. There was new wheat pricking up out of the 
soil, and there was alfalfa, started the year before, 
now forming a dark green sod. I noticed that the 
houses were apt to have a heap of sagebrush near them 
awaiting use as fuel. "That's the only thing growing 
on the prairie we can burn except greasewood," one 
farmer said to me. "The greasewood is scarce, and 



The Niagara of the West 309 

we'd rather have the sage because it has larger butts. 
A good deal of coal is shipped in, and we depend on 
that mostly in cold weather. There was spells though, 
last winter, when enough didn't arrive to go around, 
and we had to go scratching after sage. The poor 
families suffered some in the towns, and when things 
were very bad the railroad would leave a car of engine 
coal where people could help themselves to what they 
needed. A car that was out over night wouldn't have 
much left in it by morning. It was understood with the 
constable that he wasn't to watch very close and was 
only to arrest chronic swipers who would take the coal 
to saloons and sell it for booze." 

From any rising bit of ground on my walk I could 
see to the north a dark irregular rift in the sagebrush 
barren, and I knew there flowed the Snake River. 
The rift looked ominous, yet by no means of imposing 
proportions, and I concluded that any falls it might 
contain would be a disappointment. At last I left the 
farmlands behind, and the road became a narrow trail 
winding along through a strewing of lava blocks. Then 
I came to the verge of the canyon, which seemed to 
have expanded as if by magic to a width of a half mile, 
and which yawned over eight hundred feet in depth. 
Far down in the chasm was the great foaming waterfall. 
I had come from the hot, silent, monotonous prairie 
wholly unprepared for so magnificent a sight or for the 



310 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

thunder of waters that sounded in my ears. The 
gorge itself is of gloomy, volcanic rock devoid of any 
beauty in color, but savagely impressive by reason of its 
size, and also because its columnar and grottoed walls 
and vast terraces are suggestive of the planning and 
labor of some titanic architect and builder. 

I wandered for a considerable distance along the 
verge of the monstrous gorge and gazed down on the 
misty fall from the scarp of many a projecting buttress, 
some of which dropped away almost perpendicularly 
to the dark stream at the bottom of the canyon. When 
I at length took advantage of a ravine to descend to 
lower levels I found the setting of the falls became 
increasingly attractive; for now the rock walls and 
black crags towered far above and made a most inspir- 
ing spectacle. The river itself is a stream that at the 
falls flows a full thousand feet wide. Immediately 
above the leap are rapids and lesser falls, while big 
boulders and various islets block the way and add to 
the wild beauty. The vertical final drop is about one 
hundred and eighty feet, and as you watch the great 
white tumult of waters going down into the void of 
foam and flying spray below, you cannot help thinking 
of Niagara. The latter is not so high, but it is much 
broader and carries far more water. However, the 
Shoshone Falls exhibits about as much width and power 
as the mind can comprehend, and its environment 



The Niagara of the West 31 1 

appeals to one far more than does the commonplace 
level from which the greater falls makes its descent. 
The on-looker feels satisfied that here is one of the 
noblest sights on this continent. 

Clinging to the wild cliffs in the lower portions of the 
gorge grew a fringe of gray-trunked gnarled cedars. 
I saw a pair of robins flitting among them, and there 
were swallows winging in swift flight through the air, 
and high above the walls of the gorge the buzzards 
soared. During the previous winter the ground had 
been pretty continuously covered with snow, and there 
had been much suffering among the cattle on the range. 
Many had died and some had fallen over the cliffs of 
the canyon. So the buzzards hovered about the vicinity 
in force, for food was plenty. A little up stream from 
the falls, on the tip of an island crag an eagle had built 
its nest, though the casual observer would not have 
thought the rude heap of sticks was anything more 
than the broken tangle of a dead cedar. 

Somewhat farther up the river in the quiet water 
beyond the rapids was a clumsy flat-bottomed ferry- 
boat. As I watched it ply back and forth I could not 
help wondering what would happen if the wire broke. 
A year or two ago the present ferryman's prede- 
cessor, after imbibing too freely of whiskey, went 
over the falls in his rowboat, and his body was 
found in the river below, several days later. One 



312 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

foolhardy adventurer leaped from the crest of the 
falls. He was an Indian half-breed, and when a 
comrade dared him to make the jump, down he went. 
However, he escaped with only a few bruises, and was 
at once famous. Some showman arranged with him 
to repeat the exploit; but while making a tour with 
his protege in preparation for the event the half-breed 
robbed his manager and was lodged in jail. 

On a plateau, close by the falls, stands a rusty old 
hotel. There I lodged, and from its piazza at eventide 
I looked out on the mists rosy with the sunset light 
hovering over the mighty torrent and pulsating fiercely 
in the wind, swaying and weaving, now filling the 
canyon, and again all but disappearing. The volume 
of water in the river would be very much greater in 
June, the time of flood, and the spray would then fly 
over the hotel like rain. On its exposed sides the house 
was coated with a grayish deposit left behind by the 
mists. This gathered on the windows in a thick 
film that can only be removed by the use of an acid. 
The hotel people did not trouble to clear the upper 
sashes, for that portion of the windows was supposed to 
be hidden by the curtains, so I could see the results 
of the spray very easily. 

The ground quivered with the pounding of the 
water, and the hotel was in a tremble and the furniture 
shaking all night. In the morning the broad arch of a 







• ^ 
•-Si 



The Niagara of the West 313 

rainbow was painted on the mists. I was out early 
and crawled down a narrow gulch among the crannied 
rocks to the foot of the falls. This was a tooth and 
nail task, but the view of the roaring cataract from 
below was well worth the labor. The river here was 
in violent commotion, and the waves dashed on the 
rocky shore like the breakers of an angry sea. The 
scene no doubt is far wilder in time of flood, yet the 
falls must lose in beauty by reason of the vast volumes 
of obscuring mist. The cataract is at its worst in the 
late summer and early autumn, for then the stream is 
so low that a large portion of the precipice over which 
it flows is perfectly bare. 

When I left the canyon I found a family of travellers 
camped in a hollow among the rocks a little before my 
road reached the level of the prairie. They had a 
covered wagon and a tent. The mother was inside 
cooking over the little stove that thrust its pipe out of 
the canvas roof. The father armed with a gun and 
accompanied by a small daughter was just returning 
from a walk through the sagebrush. "1 never bagged 
a thing," he said. "I didn*t even get a chance at a 
Jack rabbit. This country used to be full of 'em. 
They were thicker'n the hairs on your head, by golly! 
Once I stopped up here at Minidoka and went out after 
supper with a friend for an hour and a half and got 
twenty-five. We fed *em to the dogs, but Jack rabbits 



314 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

in the season make a nice stew. They do more damage 
than a little. They're awful on alfalfa, and they'll eat 
all your garden stuff if you don't fence against them. 
They're a great pest, too, among the trees that are set 
out, because they skin the bark off and the trees die. 

"This morning, a little before sunrise, a coyote paid 
us a visit. It sat up here on the rocks howling and our 
dog was barking back. I opened the window and poked 
out my gun and blazed away at him, but he escaped." 

There were two other girls in the family. They were 
gathering flowers. Blossoms were plenty, and the 
ground was fairly dappled with their delicate bloom, 
though they seemed out of place on that gray, stony 
waste. Among the children's gatherings were sweet 
Williams, pansies, yellow violets, sunflowers that, except 
in color, resembled oxeye daisies, a little white flower 
they called stars, a kind of vetch they spoke of as 
ladies' slippers, and some sprigs of larkspur. 

"Don't leave that larkspur around where the horses 
can get it," said their father. "It's poison. Larkspur 
kills lots o' cattle in this country." 

The man adjusted a folding chair in the shadow of 
the wagon and invited me to sit down. He said he and 
his family were all musicians, and they went from town 
to town giving entertainments and playing at dances. 
The star performer was the smallest girl, eight years 
old. She could play the piano and various other instru- 



The Niagara of the West 315 

ments, but excelled on the violin, and he had her give 
me a sample of her art. She got out her violin, adjusted 
it under her chin and began playing, while he sat on 
the wagon brake and thrummed an accompaniment on 
his guitar. The music was very pleasing, for the child 
played sweetly and simply and with remarkable ease. 
When she finished, the middle-sized girl was sent to a 
brook for water, and the eldest with a halter in her hand 
went off to look for their horses, which, though hobbled, 
had strayed beyond sight, and I bade this hardy and 
happy family of "Versatile Musicians," as they called 
themselves, farewell. 

In the course of time I reached the town and there 
I made the acquaintance of another wagon family. 
They were settlers just arrived and had stopped on the 
outskirts. The man had gone to a store to buy some 
supplies. A small boy and girl had unhitched the 
horses and were feeding them and a colt a little hay 
from the back end of the wagon. The woman with a 
baby in her arms sat on the seat. She said they had 
been on the road for two weeks. They slept in the 
wagon nights. The two older children walked a good 
deal, and in places the road was so bad and the jolting 
so severe that the mother also walked. " In the moun- 
tains there was snow," said she, "and sometimes the 
horses would fall down. A good many horses would 
kick when things was like that, but these just got up 



3i6 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

and pulled again. We couldn't always find water. 
Once we had to travel thirty miles without anything 
for the horses to drink and they could hardly stand. 
I carried a little for ourselves in bottles. This country 
is not so nice as back East, but wages are so poor there 
you don't feel like stayin'.'* 

Canvas-topped wagons were plentiful all through 
this newly-opened region. Some of the wagon people 
were chronic travellers and were not content to stay 
anywhere very long. Such were referred to as " floaters " 
or " boomers," but the majority came to settle. 

My last evening in Idaho was spent at Minidoka 
where I had to wait till midnight for the train that was 
to carry me home across the continent. The village 
inhabitants numbered possibly two or three hundred, 
and there were eight saloons and a drugstore in the 
hamlet. These drinking-places drew their chief support 
from the workers on the government water ditches, and 
they were suggestively named "The Irrigator," "The 
Oasis," etc. Not long before, the village had been the 
residence of no less than twenty-five professional 
gamblers, but the sheriff had now driven them out; 
"and the business men here are all kicking because 
he done it," said my informant. " Of course the gamblers 
didn't produce anything, and yet they gathered in the 
money of the ditch-diggers and spent considerable of it 



The Niagara of the West 317 

right here in town. So we ain't as well off without 'em 
as we were with 'em." 

The saloons were brightly lighted and had plenty 
of customers, and the place was full of drunken stag- 
gerers. As the night wore on, the station became 
populous with the sodden drinkers. One of the few 
sober persons waiting for the train was an lUinois man 
who had been visiting a brother up in the Boise Valley. 
"The land boomers have been just a boosting things 
there as they have everywhere else out here," said he, 
"but they got a setback last summer. The ranchers 
have been depending on irrigation, and the water failed, 
and their crops were burnt out. Most men have held 
on to their places, but they've had to put a plaster on, 
and those mortgages won't be cleared off in a long time. 

"I been lookin' around quite a little out here, and 
wherever I've been, these 'ere real estate men have 
tried to sell me a ranch. Oh, my soul, yes! But I told 
'em there was too much wind in this country. One 
day a whirlwind will take your land over to your 
neighbors, and the next day bring it back. I like to 
have my land stay put. 

"Another thing that handicaps the ranchers here is 
the smallness of the local markets. You've got to ship 
most everything great distances. The wholesalers and 
railroads make all there is to be made. Yes, the rail- 
roads do sock it to 'em for freights. My brother set 



3i8 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

out a lot of peach and prune trees, but he can't afford 
to ship the fruit. It seems too bad to see those peaches 
big as your fist goin' to waste, and in his three acre 
prune orchard the prunes every year drop and He so 
thick you couldn't put your finger down anywhere 
under the trees without touchin' some. If a neighbor 
wants to go and fill a sack he's welcome, but my brother 
never harvests none. 

"Some try to make money raisin' hay. If there 
comes a hard winter the price is way up, but the next 
winter the buyer can probably get it for whistHng. On 
the average you're obliged to stack it two or three years 
to sell it at a profit. 

" I tell you, it don't seem to me they can enjoy livin' 
so much out here as we do in the East. You take this 
Western country and any sort of a house does for a 
home. Three hundred dollars or less will put up a 
pretty good dwelling. My brother has been livin' in 
such a shack for twenty years. On the ground floor 
are two little bedrooms and a kitchen not over fifteen 
feet square. A ladder in a corner of the kitchen serves 
as a stairway for you to climb up to a sleeping-place 
under the roof. He raised seven children there, but 
now they're growed up and moved away. The house is 
far from any town, and during the eight weeks I was 
stopping with 'em I saw just two teams pass. I used 



The Niagara of the West 319 

to go out and hunt Jack rabbits. That was the only 
excitement I seen. 

"Near where I was stayin' was a valley that had so 
much alkali in the soil hardly anything would grow. 
We went across it one day. The distance was only five 
miles but the weather was hot, and my brother drove 
like the old Harry. The horses kicked up the dust, 
and I was filled full. *I golly!' I said, 'you're goin' to 
kill me, ain't you ?' 

"But he said the quicker out of it the better. I had 
the awfulest eyes for the next two weeks that ever was. 
They were bloodshot, and each morning when I got 
up they were gummed together, and the inside of my 
nose was so sore I didn't git any comfort. It beats all 
what that alkali will do for a feller. 

"There's one advantage, though, they have over the 
East — they don't have potato bugs. The common run 
of people don't know them at all. Now and then a sack 
of the bugs is shipped out here, and they think the 
creatures are beans. A potato bug is about the stub- 
bornest thing I ever seen. It don't try to escape, even 
when you knock it off in a can and put it in the fire. 
Any other bug that's got wings would use 'em and fly 
away." 

The Illinois man relapsed into silence, and slouched 
his hat over his eyes as if he was going to try to doze. 
Most of the other occupants of the room sat smoking 



320 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

and spitting, or sleeping in dull stupor. I went out and 
walked back and forth in the chill night air on the long 
gravel platform in front of the station. A half moon 
was shining high in the hazy sky. The village was now 
dark, except for the saloons. One other person was 
walking as I was, back and forth with crunching foot- 
steps on the gravel. We passed some remark presently 
and walked together, and my new comrade became 
confidential. 

"Fm pretty well loaded," he said. "It's seldom I 
take so much; but I know what Vm about. I always 
keep my senses. To see me now you wouldn't suspect 
that as a boy back East I was well brought up. My 
parents were good, careful people, and they did all they 
could to give me an education and start me right. 
I suppose they were a little too strict, for when I found 
myself free I was like a colt let loose, and I kicked up 
my heels. They died just as I came of age and left me 
twelve thousand dollars. I was my own master then, 
and a mighty poor master I made. 

"I had always been fond of books, and it seemed to 
me nothing could be so pleasant as to travel and see 
those famous places of which I had read. So off I 
started, and I visited England, France, Egypt, Palestine 
and other countries. I didn't spare expense. The best 
was none too good for me in my touring. After cover- 
ing as much country as I cared to I spent several 




o 






The Niagara of the West 321 

months in Paris, and there I got mixed up with the 
fast Hfe, and my money melted away. 

" I reached home finally with cash enough left to buy 
four six-horse teams and I went into the business of 
trucking. For a year I did well, and then within a few 
days I lost more than half my horses by pink eye. After 
that my luck went from bad to worse, till I gave up 
trying to make a place for myself in the world. I spend 
all I get. Perhaps I will keep straight for five or six 
months, and then Fll have a spree that'll leave me 
dead broke. 

"Tve done only one good thing in my life. Fll tell 
you about it. I had a cousin who fell in love with a 
locomotive engineer. Her parents didn't like that. 
They thought from his occupation he was kind of low 
and of loose morals; and besides his work kept him 
dirty and away from home much of the time. They 
wouldn't consent to her marrying him, but she did 
marry him just the same; and they were as loving a 
couple as I ever saw. They thought everything of each 
other, and when he got his wages he'd always bring 
'em home and give the whole into her keeping. Then, 
if he wanted of an evening to go down town he'd say, 
'May, there are one or two things I want to buy. Let 
me have three or four dollars.' 

"She'd probably give him twice what he asked 
for — they were just that trustful of each other. Well, 



322 Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast 

two years passed, and he was killed in a collision, and 
left May with a little baby girl. May couldn't get over 
his loss. She tried to be brave, she tried to act cheerful; 
but she was thinkin' of him all the time, and when she 
was taken sick she didn't make a good fight against 
the disease and she died. 

"Her folks took the baby, and yet because the child 
was the daughter of a man whom they didn't approve of 
it wasn't welcome. They didn't treat it right. They 
couldn't forgive May for marrying as she did. But 
heavens! what fault was that of the baby's .? It used to 
make me wild, and I'd tell 'em what I thought of 'em. 
That didn't do any good, and at last I took the baby away 
from the whole bunch. Ever since, I've supported her. 
She's at school back East now, and she'll be sixteen 
next month. You ought to see her letters. She's no 
sponge. She never begs for money, but if there's any- 
thing she wants she'll say she'd like it if I think best, 
and the money to buy what she wants goes to her as 
fast as the mail will carry it. I've bought lots of 
jewelry and clothing for her, and there's few girls has 
more nice things than she does. She's not spoiled, 
either. 

"About once a year I go East to visit her. She's 
never seen me as I am now, no, sir! I wear a good 
suit of clothes, and I fix up all right, and I wouldn't 
think of touching even a glass of beer for a week before. 



The Niagara of the West 323 

lest she should smell It in my breath. When I come 
away I always hide a twenty dollar gold piece some- 
where so she'll find it when I'm gone. Yes, taking care 
of that baby is the only good thing I've ever done. I'm 
pretty useless to anyone and everyone but her. I only 
wish I was what she thinks I am. Say, stranger, my 
life would have been a blank these last dozen years 
without her to work for." 

It was midnight. The moon and stars looked down 
serenely from the vastness of the heavens and the 
saloons over across the tracks in the gloomy village 
were still brilliant and noisy. Approaching from the 
west I could see the headlight of my train, and off in 
the sagebrush, on the outskirts of the hamlet, I could 
hear the weird yelping of a coyote. 

Note. — A remarkable feature of the state is the black and ragged 
lava bed which covers so much of the territory along the course of 
the Snake River. It forms a desert 400 miles long and from 40 to 60 
miles wide. The lava deposit has a depth of from half a mile to a 
mile. Through this the Snake River has carved its mighty canyon, 
which at places has a depth of 4,000 feet. 

The Shoshone Falls merits the attention of the tourist scarcely 
less than Niagara, and access to it is now reasonably easy. Just 
above the main cataract is the 80-foot Bridal Veil Fall, and three 
miles farther up are the Twin Falls. About 5 miles below the 
Shoshone Falls are the attractive Blue Lakes where boating and 
fishing may be enjoyed. 

An added interest attaches to this region because a very large area 
of what was a sagebrush desert has recently been reclaimed by one 
of the biggest irrigation schemes ever attempted. 



I 



t 



The Touring Edition of 

CLIFTON JOHNSON'S 

BEAUTIFUL BOOKS 

From the Highways and Byways Series 

Decorated Cloth, i2mo, $1.50 net; postpaid $1.64. 
Illustrated with Photographs by the Author 

HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS OF THE GREAT LAKES 

"Vacation travelers, whose thoughts turn to our inland seas, will find 
information and inspiration in this volume." — New York World. 

"A real picture of the country covered and its people." — Boston Globe. 



HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS OF THE ROCKY 

MOUNTAINS 

"It is a book that is as interesting as it is valuable, as picturesque as 
it is typical and as pleasurable as it is sincere." — Boston Times. 

"It is a book for those planning pleasure tours and contains many 
valuable suggestions for travelers." — New^York Herald. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



HIGHWAYS .\ND BYWAYS OF THE MISSISSIPPI 

VALLEY 

With Sixty-three Full-Page Illustrations 

"!Mr. Johnson has written no book of more interest to Americans than 
this one." — New York Times. 

"From cover to cover the book is both entertaining and instructive." 

— Brooklyn Eagle. 



OTHER VOLUMES IN THE HIGHWAYS 
AND BYWAYS SERIES 

Decorated Cloth, 8vo, $2.00 net; postpaid, $2.20 

The Touring Edition Preparing 

Illustrations by the Author 

HIGHWAYS AND B\^\ AYS OF THE PACIFIC COAST 

With Sixty-three Full-Page Illustrations 

"For the benefit of persons contemplating pleasure tours through the 
region, each chapter is helpful, with suggestions for practical travel." 

— Chicago Evening Post. 

HIGmVAYS AND BYVYAYS OF THE SOUTH 

With One Hundred and Thirty-two Illustrations 

"Mr. Johnson gives more illuminative descriptions of homely details 
in life than any other modern writer." — Tozvn and Country. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



THE following pages contain advertisements of 
Macmillan books by the same author and on 
kindred subjects. 



THE BOOK OF THE GREAT NORTH 
Labrador : The Country and the People 

By WILFRED T. GRENFELL, CM. G., M. R.C.S., M.D., (Oxon.) 

The Celebrated Missionary Doctor of the Artie and others 

New and enlarged edition, beautifully and profusely illustrated. 

Decorated cloth, Gilt tops, $2.§o net; postpaid, $2.72 

Labrador is, relatively speaking, an unknown land. Its great natural 
resources, the wonderful awe-inspiring grandeur of its rugged scenery with 
mountains of fantastic architecture and the delicate and fascinating colors 
of Artie auroras playing over all, — these are things of which the vast ma- 
jority of readers know nothing. Dr. Grenfell, who has lived long in this 
region, writes of the natural beauties of the country as well as the future of 
Labrador and the relation of its rapid development to the North American 
Continent. 



The Heart of Gaspe"^ 

SKETCHES IN THE GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE 

By JOHN MASON CLARKE 

Illustrated cloth, 8vo, $2.00 net; postpaid, $2.18 

Gaspe, one of the most romantic spots left in America, is the latest 
discovery of the tourist in search of the picturesque. This bit of seacoast 
in the Peninsula of Eastern Quebec is remarkable for its scenery, its history 
and its people. Its story is told and its beauties described in this book by 
one who knows Gaspe from years of acquaintance and exploration. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



New Books of Travel, Adventure and Description 



My Life with the Eskimos 

By VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON 

Illustrated with half-tone reproductions of -photographs taken by the author 
and others. Decorated cloth, 8vo. Preparing. 

A fascinating book of description and adventure has been 
written by the famous traveler and explorer, who has passed 
years of his life within the Artie Circle. Mr. Stefansson 
has had a vast amount of material upon which to draw, and 
he has made his selection wisely. He has lived with the Es- 
kimos for long periods; he knows their language; he has 
subsisted on their food; he has heard their legends; he has 
seen them in their daily lives as have few explorers. Con- 
sequently his remarks about this primitive and matter-of- 
fact people are shrewd, true, and frequently amusing. The 
experiences and tales which he recounts, mirroring the hard- 
ships and the inspirations of life in a fearful but wonderful 
country, compose a work quite the most absorbing on it that 
has ever been published. 

The Barbary Coast 

By albert EDWARDS 
Author of "Panama," "Comrade Yetta," etc. 

With many illustrations. Decorated cloth, i2mo. Preparing. 

Albert Edward's "Panama: The Canal, the Country, and 
the People" has gone into many editions and received wide 
and favorable comment. Much may, therefore, be expected 
of this new descriptive volume, in which Mr. Edwards relates 
some of his remarkable and always interesting experiences in 
the states of northern Africa. Mr. Edwards does not write 
with a history or a book at his elbow; what he says does not 
come to the reader from a second-hand knowledge. He has 
been in Africa himself and he writes out of his own life. 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

THE PICTURESQUE RIVER SERIES 

Each Decorated Cloth, i2mo, $1.2^ net; Postpaid, $1.34 
Illustrated by the Author 



THE PICTURESQUE HUDSON 

"A guide book de luxe.'' — Boston Globe. 

"The volume should prove a pleasant and profitable companion to 
anyone contemplating a trip on the Hudson." — Chicago Record-Herald. 



THE PICTURESQUE ST. LAWRENCE 

"A valuable guide-book for prospective travelers along this beautiful 
river." — Philadelphia Public Ledger. 

"The book is full of interesting information, besides being so well 
written that it will be enjoyed by many who are not contemplating a Cana- 
dian trip, while those who are will find it invaluable." — New York Herald. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



MacMillan's New Travel Series 

"The best in the field of illustrated books of travel and description." 
Decorated cloth, i2mo, boxed, $i.jO net; postpaid, $1.65 

ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 

By Ella Higginson. 

"A great book on a great subject." — Boston Transcript 

CUBA: By Irene A. Wright 

''One of the most informing of all books on the subject" 

— Pittsburg Gazette 

MEXICO: THE WONDERLAND OF THE SOUTH 

By W. E. Carson 
"The best popular book on Mexico that we have seen" — America. 

PANAMA: THE CANAL, THE COUNTRY AND THE PEOPLE 

By Albert Edwards 
"One of the very best of travel books." — New York Herald 

BOSTON: THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE 

By M. A. De Wolfe Howe 

"One of the best all-round books about Boston yet published" 

— Argonaut 

NEW ORLEANS: THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE 

By Grace King 

"A useful and attractive book." — Daily Telegraph. 

CHARLESTON: THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE 

By Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel 

"Every page is pregnant with interesting fact and suggestion" 

— Philadelphia Public Ledger 

PHILADELPHIA: THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE 

By Agnes Repplier 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



str 2^ md 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



M III III I 



017 138 093 5 



